Gantry robot construction and drive mechanism
OwnerGordon T. Brown, David A. Stewartinventors
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A gantry robot construction is provided. The construction includes a pair of elongated substantially spaced parallel rails, a bridge spanning and substantially perpendicular to the rails and movable relative to the rails, and a robot head and support mounted on the bridge and movable relative to the bridge. The rails are positioned along the width or shorter side of the work area with the bridge spanning the length or longer side of the work area. An improved rack and pinion apparatus is also disclosed that is used in association with the gantry robot construction. There is a zero degree pressure angle between the rack and pinion. In the pinion the base circle is congruent with the pitch circle.
Claims11
A rack and pinion comprising:
- rack means;
- and
- pinion means for conversion between rotary and rectilinear motion;
- one of said rack means and pinion means comprising rotatable pins;
- and
- the other of said rack means and pinion means comprising teeth whose profile comprises an involute generated from a base circle which is congruent with the pitch circle of the other of said rack means and pinion means, whereby there is substantially a zero degree pressure angle between the pins and the teeth.
Drive means for a robot gantry and the like, said drive means comprising a rack and a driven pinion, the rack comprising a plurality of spaced rotatable pins which are engaged by teeth on the pinion, the pinion having teeth whose profile comprises an involute profile generated from a base circle which is congruent to the pitch circle of the pinion, said rack and pinion being characterized by a zero degree pressure angle between the pinion teeth and the rack pins.
Power transmission means comprising driving means and drive means, one of said driving means and driven means having teeth and the other of said driving means and driven means having rotatable pins which engage the teeth, said teeth having a profile which comprises a curve generated from a base circle which is congruent to the pitch circle whereby there is a substantially zero degree pressure angle between the pins and the teeth.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.