Conveyance system for interface with component production and assembly equipment

Abstract

Machinery for automated manufacture of formed wire structures such as innerspring assemblies for mattresses and seating and flexible support structures includes one or more coil formation devices configurable to produce helical spring coils having a terminal convolution which extends beyond an end of the coil; a conveyor system having a plurality of flights slidably mounted upon a continuous track and connected to a chain and driven by an index driver, the flights being connected to a drive system which enables variable spacing between the flights so that the conveyor can be loaded with articles at one spacing interval and be unloaded at a different interval; a coil transfer machine which removes a row of coils from the conveyor and inserts the coils into an innerspring assembler; an innerspring assembler having first and second sets of coil-engaging dies in a parallel arrangement, each set of dies having an upper row positioned over a lower row, the dies being mounted upon carrier bars which are vertically translated within the innerspring assembler to diverge the upper and lower dies of a set to allow positioning of a row of uncompressed coils between the upper and lower dies, and to converge the upper and lower dies upon a row of coils to compress and thereby securely hold the coils in a row; a coil interconnection device for interconnecting adjacent rows of coils in the first and second sets of dies by attachment of fastening means about the adjacent coils; and an indexer assembly engageable with the carrier bars and operative to laterally translate the carrier bars, whereby the lateral position of the first and second sets of dies can be exchanged to provide continuous attachment of rows of coils to produce an interconnected array of coils as an innerspring assembly.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.