Apparatus for the automatic casting, coating, varnishing, testing and sorting of workpieces

Apparatus for the automatic casting, coating, varnishing, testing and sorting of workpieces of circular disk-shaped, flat substrates of plastic for data storages comprising:

• a production station and working stations, at least one transport apparatus for advancing the substrates from the production station having a delivery station with a transfer station to the working stations, and at least one receiver each for the separate receiving of substrates that are finished and found perfect and substrates that are defective, a substrate transport apparatus having a transport carriage which is movable back and forth along a straight line and which has three transport arms on each side having substrate holders, a vacuum coating apparatus on one side of the transport carriage and having a lock station, and a stacking system disposed on another side of the transport carriage, and an apparatus for quality testing;
• and a rotatable transport system disposed opposite the production station in the direction of movement of the transport carriage with varnishing, drying, printing, print inspection apparatus disposed on its circumference, the rotatable transport system moving the substrates in a plurality of transport steps on a circular path of a full 360 degrees about a vertical axis of rotation of the rotatable transport system, and the transport carriage in its movement in one direction transporting with its first arm a first substrate in a single transport step from the transfer station of the delivery station to the lock station of the vacuum coating apparatus and, with another transport arm, also simultaneously moving a second substrate from the coating apparatus to varnishing apparatus and likewise moving a third substrate from the varnishing apparatus to the rotatable transport system which rotates stepwise and in the same rhythm, and the transport carriage in its next movement in an opposite direction (B) transports a finished substrate to the inspection apparatus and transports an already inspected substrate to the first receiver or a substrate to the second receiver.