Method and apparatus for monitoring and controlling an armature winding machine including missed tang detection

In an armature winding machine including a) a flier having a primary forward rotation coil winding direction, a normal stop position, a reverse direction for hooking wire around a commutator tang of a motor armature between winding of successive coils and a reverse stop position, b) a wire tensioning system located along a path of wire feed from a wire supply to said flier, c) a wire slack take-up device located between said wire supply and said flier, and d) a control system for interrupting machine operation in the event wire usage within a predetermined portion of a machine cycle does not meet a norm of wire usage during that cycle, the improvement comprising:

• a guide pulley intermediate said wire slack take-up device and said flier, said guide pulley having wire trained thereover so as to be positively rotated in a forward direction in response to wire being drawn by said flier and positively rotated in a reverse direction in response to wire being drawn by said wire slack take-up device when slack is created in said wire between said flier and said wire supply;
• a shaft encoder comprising a stationary body and a rotatable shaft mounting said guide pulley and coaxial therewith, and means for sensing angular displacement of said shaft relative to said body, said guide pulley being affixed to said encoder shaft so that said encoder shaft rotates with said guide pulley;
• an add-subtract counter that receives signals from said shaft encoder and in response to said signals adds counts when wire is fed in said forward direction by said flier and subtracts counts when said wire is fed in said reverse direction by said wire slack take-up device;
• and
• means for interrupting machine operation in the event a total output count of said shaft encoder is outside a predetermined tolerance for said predetermined portion of a machine cycle.

In an armature winding machine including a) a flier having a primary forward rotation coil winding direction, a normal stop position, a reverse direction for hooking wire around a commutator tang of a motor armature between winding of successive coils and a reverse stop position, b) a wire tensioning system located along a path of wire feed from a wire supply to said flier, c) a wire slack take-up device having a wire slack take-up pulley, said wire slack take-up device having a shaft biased in a wire slack take-up direction, said wire slack take-up pulley being located between said wire supply and said flier and said wire being trained over said wire slack take-up pulley, d) a guide pulley in the wire path between said wire slack take-up pulley and said flier, said wire being trained over said guide pulley, and e) a control system for interrupting machine operation in the event wire usage within a given portion of a machine cycle does not meet a norm of wire usage during that cycle, the improvement wherein said control system comprises:

• a shaft encoder comprising a stationary body and a rotatable shaft, and means for sensing angular displacement of said shaft relative to said body, said shaft being operatively associated with one of said pulleys so as to rotate in response to movements thereof;
• an add-subtract counter that receives signals from said shaft encoder and in response to said signals adds counts when wire is fed in said forward direction by said flier and subtracts counts when said wire is fed in said reverse direction by said wire slack take-up device;
• and
• means for interrupting machine operation in the event a total output count of said shaft encoder is outside a predetermined tolerance for said given portion of a machine cycle.

A method for monitoring the operation of a cyclical machine which utilizes wire in the winding of electric motor components and interrupting the operation of the machine in the event of faulty winding operation, said machine having a winding member that pulls wire from a source of wire under tension over a guide pulley during some intervals of operation and permits the wire to become slack during other intervals of operation, the wire being pulled from said winding member when the wire becomes slack by operation of a wire slack take-up device with which the wire is engaged, said method comprising the steps of:

• sensing increments of movements of said wire slack take-up device in a first direction as wire is being drawn from said source;
• sensing increments of movements of said wire slack take-up device in a reverse direction when operation of said winding member results in a slack wire condition;
• computing an algebraic sum of the increments of movements of said wire slack take-up device both in said first and in said reverse direction;
• determining whether said algebraic sum is within a predetermined tolerance limit of a predetermined algebraic sum of increments of movements of said wire slack take-up device for a given cyclical portion of machine operation;
• and
• interrupting operation of the machine if said algebraic sum is outside of said tolerance limit.

A method for monitoring the operation of a cyclical machine which utilizes wire in the winding of electric motor components and interrupting the operation of the machine in the event of faulty winding operation, said machine having a winding member that pulls wire from a source of wire under tension over a guide pulley during some intervals of operation and permits the wire to become slack during other intervals of operation, the wire being pulled from said winding member when the wire becomes slack by operation of a wire slack take-up device having a wire slack take-up pulley over which the wire is trained, said method comprising the steps of:

• sensing increments of movements of one of said pulleys in a first direction of movement thereof as wire is being drawn from said source;
• sensing increments of movements of said one of said pulleys in a reverse direction when operation of said winding member results in a slack wire condition;
• computing an algebraic sum of the increments of movements of said one of said pulleys both in said first and in said reverse direction which is equal to the difference between the increments of movements of said one of said pulleys in said first direction and the increments of movements of said one of said pulleys in said reverse direction;
• determining whether said algebraic sum is within a predetermined tolerance limit of a predetermined algebraic sum of increments of movements of said one of said pulleys for a given cyclical portion of machine operation;
• and
• interrupting operation of the machine if said algebraic sum is outside of said tolerance limit.