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US 8,127,423 B2Granted
Roller hemming system
AssigneeHirotec America, Inc.
InventorsJames Toeniskoetter, Jamie Lavely
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A roller hemming system for hemming nested panels includes a single hemming workstation providing for tooling exchange operations simultaneous with hemming operations. A plurality of robots that perform tooling exchange at the hemming workstation, movement of nested panels through the system, and hemming operations on nested panels at the hemming workstation. Nested panels are inputted into the system and hemmed nested panel assemblies are outputted from the system.
Claims8
A method of hemming nested panels, said method comprising the steps of:
- providing a single hemming workstation including a turntable adapted to simultaneously mount at least two anvils thereon at a first anvil mounting position and a second anvil mounting position;
- mounting an anvil on said first anvil mounting position of said turntable using an anvil load robot;
- mounting a clamping spider and an engaged set of nested panels on said anvil at said first anvil mounting position using a clamping spider load robot;
- rotating said turntable to present said anvil and said mounted clamping spider and nested panels to a plurality of roller hemming robots;
- performing hemming operations on said nested panels using said roller hemming robots;
- and
- while performing said hemming operations, performing at least one of (a) unloading a clamping spider and an engaged hemmed nested panel assembly from an anvil mounted on said second anvil mounting position of said turntable using said clamping spider load robot, (b) unloading an anvil from said second anvil mounting position using said anvil load robot, (c) mounting an anvil on said second anvil mounting position using said anvil load robot, and (d) mounting a clamping spider and an engaged set of nested panels onto an anvil disposed at said second anvil mounting position using said clamping spider load robot.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.