Drive mechanism for a pick-and-place unit

A device for driving a pair of jaws pivotally supported from a housing towards and away from each other, said jaws each including an upwardly oriented head from which a leg downwardly depends, said heads and said legs having inner respectively opposed surfaces, an arcuate recess formed in each such inner opposed head surface said recesses cooperatively forming a drive socket, a generally cylindrical bushing laterally disposed between said jaws and supported in said socket and disposed in slidable face to face contact with the opposed surfaces of said recesses, said bushing including terminal ends laterally extending past the opposite sides of said jaws and drive means connected to said bushing ends for reciprocating said bushing up and down with respect to said housing so as to force said jaws to pivotally move towards and away from each other, said drive means including a drive member having segments disposed on either side of said jaws and adapted to receive said bushing ends therein, said housing including a generally centrally disposed vertically oriented bore, said drive member passing through said bore and adapted for reciprocal movement relative thereto, said recesses downwardly spaced from the upper terminus of said head so as to define opposed upper head inner surfaces and stop means adapted to contact one of said upper head inner surfaces so as to directly limit the extent of pivotal movement of said jaws relative to each other.