Terminal crimping system with wire alignment aid
AssigneeTyco Electronics Corporation
InventorsMichael Edward Hallman, Mark Elton Unger, III
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A terminal crimping system for a crimping machine includes an anvil, a movable ram, an image acquisition device, and a display device. The anvil is located in a crimping zone and configured to receive a terminal thereon. The terminal has a wire crimp barrel configured to receive a wire therein. The ram has crimp tooling configured to crimp the wire crimp barrel of the terminal to the wire during a crimp stroke of the ram. The image acquisition device is configured to be mounted on the crimping machine above the crimping zone. The image acquisition device is positioned to acquire an image of the wire within the wire crimp barrel of the terminal in the crimping zone. The display device is configured to display the image.
Claims21
A terminal crimping system for a crimping machine comprising:
- an anvil located in a crimping zone and configured to receive a terminal thereon, the terminal having a wire crimp barrel configured to receive an end portion of a wire therein,
- a movable ram having crimp tooling configured to crimp the wire crimp barrel of the terminal to the end portion of the wire during a crimp stroke of the ram,
- an image acquisition device configured to be mounted on the crimping machine above the crimping zone, the image acquisition device positioned to acquire an image of the wire within the terminal in the crimping zone, and
- a display device configured to display the image.
A method of aligning a wire with a terminal disposed on a terminal crimping system, the method comprising:
- mounting an image acquisition device to a crimping machine above a crimping zone, the crimping machine having a movable ram and an anvil, the anvil located in the crimping zone and configured to receive a terminal thereon, the terminal having a wire crimp barrel configured to receive an end portion of a wire therein, the ram having crimp tooling configured to crimp the terminal on the anvil to the wire during a crimp stroke of the ram, the image acquisition device positioned to acquire at least one image of the end portion of the wire within the crimp barrel of the terminal in the crimping zone,
- acquiring an image of the wire within the crimp barrel of the terminal in the crimping zone prior to the terminal being crimped to the wire,
- displaying the image on a display device, and
- superimposing an alignment line of the terminal and an alignment line of the wire on the image that is displayed on the display device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.