Apparatus for feeding a plurality of wires
AssigneeAMP Incorporated
InventorsDavid Edward Bickford, Robert Keith Southard, Matthew Michael Sucheski, Earl William Wagner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
High speed wire feeding means comprises a wire feed roll and a pressure roll, the wire feed roll being driven by a printed circuit motor under the influence of control means which maintains a high and constant level of acceleration and deceleration at the beginning and end of the feeding cycle. One embodiment has a single driven feed roll and a plurality of side-by-side pressure rolls for feeding a plurality of wires. This apparatus is capable of producing a bundle of wires having varying lengths in a minimum amount of time.
Claims7
Wire feeding apparatus comprising:
- a wire feed roll, said feed roll having a width which is sufficient to receive a plurality of wires in side-by-side parallel relationship, motor means for rotating said feed roll,
- a plurality of pressure rolls, said pressure rolls being mounted on axes which extend parallel to the axis of said feed roll, each of said pressure rolls having a non-feeding position, in which it is spaced from said feed roll, and being individually movable towards said feed roll to a wire feeding position,
- wire guide means, said guide means being effective to guide wires from substantially endless source means towards said feed roll and position one wire between said feed roll and each of said pressure rolls and
- control means for starting and stopping said motor means and for moving said pressure rolls selectively individually and selectively in unison from said nonfeeding positions to said wire feeding positions whereby, upon discriminative operation of said control means, said apparatus will produce groups of fed wires of varying predetermined lengths with the ends of each wire disposed at any desired location relative to the ends of the longest wire in the group.
Wire feeding means for feeding a plurality of wires from substantially endless sources, said feeding means comprising:
- a feed roll, said feed roll being coupled to motor means for rotating said feed roll, a plurality of pressure rolls, said pressure rolls being rotatably mounted on axis means which extends parallel to the axis of rotation of said feed roll, said pressure rolls being movable individually and in unison between non-feeding positions and feeding positions, said pressure rolls being relatively remote from said feed roll when in said non-feeding positions and being relatively proximate to said feed roll when in said feeding positions,
- wire guiding means for guiding said wires into the nips defined by said feed roll and said pressure rolls,
- disengageable wire clamping means for clamping said wires selectively and preventing feeding thereof,
- control means comprising means for starting said motor means from rest and accelerating said motor means at a high and ideally constant rate to an operating speed, means for decelerating said motor means from said operating speed at a high and ideally constant rate to stop said motor means, means for disengaging said clamping means individually and in unison from said wires and moving said pressure rolls individually and in unison from said non-feeding positions to said feeding positions concomitantly with starting of said motor means, and
- means for engaging said clamping means individually and in unison and moving said pressure rolls individually and in unison from said feeding positions to said non-feeding positions concomitantly with stopping of said motor means whereby,
- said wires can be fed individually and in unison from said endless sources upon discriminative operation of said control means to start and stop said motor means, to clamp and unclamp said wires by said clamping means, and to selectively move said pressure rolls between said feeding and non-feeding positions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.