Method for producing an electrical wire equipped with a terminal

Abstract

An outer terminal (20) is placed between a crimping device and an anvil. Next, the crimping device and the anvil are closed to an intermediate position, and a wire barrel (22) is deformed toward the inside, thereby forming an insertion guide (G) for an inner housing (11) through the wire barrel. Next, the inner housing (11) is inserted along the insertion guide (G) formed by the wire barrel (22) up to an inside predetermined position of a cylindrical end portion (21) of the outer terminal (20). Next, the crimping device and the anvil are further closed to crimp the wire barrel (22) onto an electrical wire (W).

Description

TECHNICAL FIELDThe present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire, in which a terminal for a shielded electric wire having an inner housing and an outer terminal is attached to one end of a shielded electric wire such as a high-frequency cable, a multi-core cable, or a coaxial electric wire.PRIOR ARTA shielded electric wire is known in which a core wire is covered with a conductor for signal transmission with a shielded conductor such as a braid, and the outside of the shielded conductor is covered with a sheath. A terminal attached to an end of this type of shielded electric wire generally includes an inner housing and an outer terminal disposed on an outer periphery of the inner housing. The inner housing is a component having an inner terminal conductively connected to the conductor of the wire core, and the outer terminal disposed outside the inner housing is a component conductively connected to the shielded conductor.The inner housing accommodating the inner terminal is inserted into a tubular body at a distal end portion of the outer terminal from behind during assembly, and is attached to the end of the electric wire in advance. In a final processing of the electric wire, the conductor of the wire core exposed by removing the sheath is conductively connected to the inner terminal in the inner housing. After the inner case is inserted, the shielded conductor exposed at an end portion of the peeled sheath is conductively connected to the outer terminal by crimping a wire barrel of the outer terminal.When this type of terminal having the inner housing and the outer terminal is attached to an end of an electric wire by an automated machine, a series of steps includes a step of inserting the inner housing attached to the end of the electric wire from behind into the tubular distal end portion of the outer terminal.However, in attempting to insert the inner housing, which is attached to the end of the electric wire in advance, into the outer terminal by an automated machine, when positioning is not performed with considerable precision, a distal end of the inner housing hits an entrance of the tubular distal end portion of the outer terminal, making it impossible to insert the inner housing into the outer terminal and causing the electric wire to buckle.In view of this, it is conceivable to insert the inner housing into the outer terminal while positioning the inner housing with high accuracy using a positioning mechanism. However, with the miniaturization of the terminal, it is necessary to reduce the size of the positioning mechanism, which makes the apparatus more complicated and makes it difficult to provide the positioning mechanism. In addition, when the positioning mechanism is provided, an operation time required for positioning may be increased, which leads to problems such as a longer cycle time for a terminal mounting step.Patent Literature 1 describes a similar example of an automated mounting apparatus for this type of terminal for a shielded electric wire.Patent Literature 1 describes an example in which an insulating component (spacer) corresponding to an inner housing is inserted from the front side of an outer terminal, and an inner terminal attached to an end of an electric wire is inserted from a rear side of the outer terminal. However, both the insertion of the inner housing and the insertion of the inner terminal require accurate positioning with respect to the outer terminal, and with the miniaturization of the terminal, the insertion becomes more difficult to achieve.LIST OF REFERENCESPATENT LITERATUREPatent Literature 1: JP 3 456 422 BSUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONTECHNICAL PROBLEMAs described above, in the related art, it is necessary to separately provide a positioning mechanism when an inner component is inserted into an outer terminal, but there is a problem that the insertion with the miniaturization of the terminal becomes difficult to achieve with the same mechanism.The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire, by which positioning can be performed when inserting an inner housing into an outer terminal without using a special positioning mechanism, and thus the method can be easily achieved even when a terminal is miniaturized.SOLUTION OF PROBLEMIn order to achieve the object described above, the method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire according to the present invention is characterized as follows.A method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire, wherein the terminal-equipped electric wire is obtained by attaching an external terminal to an outer periphery of an inner housing, the method comprising:a first step of placing the external terminal between a crimper and an anvil for crimping a wire barrel provided at a rear end portion of the external terminal;a second step of closing the crimper and the anvil to a first stage and deforming the wire barrel inward to form an insertion guide for the inner housing through the wire barrel;a third step of inserting the inner housing attached to an end of an electric wire along the insertion guide formed by the wire barrel to an inner predetermined position of a distal end tubular portion of the outer terminal; anda fourth step of further closing the crimper and the anvil to press the wire barrel on the electric wire extending rearward from the inner housing after the inner housing is inserted to the predetermined position.ADVANTAGEOUS EFFECTS OF THE INVENTIONAccording to the present invention, a crimping operation by the crimper and the anvil for crimping the wire barrel of the external terminal is temporarily stopped at an intermediate position, thereby forming the wire barrel as the insertion guide. Consequently, the inner housing can be smoothly inserted into the outer terminal along the insertion guide formed by the wire barrel without requiring a separate positioning mechanism. Therefore, there is an advantage that a separate guide mechanism can be omitted in addition to the crimper and the anvil required for crimping the wire barrel. That is, since a separate guide mechanism is not required, the apparatus is not complicated, and an assembly operation of the inner housing with respect to the outer terminal can be easily performed without increasing the cost and requiring extra operation time.The present invention has been briefly described above. Further, details of the present invention can be made clear by reading a mode (hereinafter referred to as an "embodiment") for carrying out the invention to be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS[FIG. 1 ] FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating steps of a manufacturing method according to an embodiment of the present invention.[FIG. 2 ] FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along a line A 1-A 1 in FIG. 1.[FIG. 3] FIG. 3 is a perspective view illustrating steps other than those illustrated in FIG. 1.[FIG. 4] FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view taken along a line A 2-A 2 in FIG. 3.[FIG. 5 ] FIG. 5 is a perspective view illustrating steps other than those illustrated in FIG. 2.[FIG. 6 ] FIG. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along a line A 3-A 3 in FIG. 5.[FIG. 7 ] FIG. 7 is a schematic side view illustrating an operation of a mounting mechanism as steps illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 proceed.[FIG. 8 ] FIG. 8 is a schematic side view illustrating an operation of a mounting mechanism as steps illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4 proceed.[FIG. 9] FIG. 9 is a schematic side view illustrating an operation of a mounting mechanism as steps illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6 proceed.DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTSA specific embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.FIGS. 1 to 6 are diagrams each illustrating steps of a manufacturing method according to the embodiment, and FIGS. 7 to 9 are schematic side views each illustrating an operation of a montag mechanism as each step proceeds.In the method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire according to the present embodiment, when an inner housing 11 and an outer terminal 20 are supplied to a mounting device (also referred to as a processing device) to be described later, in the shape illustrated in FIG. 1, assembly starts. That is, the inner housing 11 is attached to an end portion of an electric wire W in advance in a previous step to be supplied to the mounting device in a form of an inner housing-equipped electric wire 10.The electric wire W in this case includes a sheath W 1 in an outermost layer, a braid W 2 as a shielded conductor inside the sheath W 1, and a wire core (not illustrated) inside the braid W 2. As for the electric wire W, a conductor of the wire core exposed by removing the sheath W 1 is conductively connected to an inner terminal (not illustrated) in the inner housing 11 in a final processing of the previous step. In addition, the braid W 2 exposed by peeling off the sheath W 1 is trimmed and then folded and overlapped on an outer periphery of a sleeve 30 fitted on an outer periphery of an end portion of the sheath W 1. Consequently, the inner-cased electric wire 10 is prepared in advance in the previous step. An impedance matching component (not shown) may be attached to the end of the electric wire W together with the inner housing 11.The outer terminal 20 is press-formed to have a tubular portion (distal end tubular portion) 21 on a distal end side and a wire barrel 22 to be pressed and crimped to the electric wire W on a rear end side, and is chain-connected to a carrier (not illustrated). The wire barrel 22 is provided with a front barrel 23 and a rear barrel 24 that is rearward of the front barrel 23. The front sleeve 23 is to be crimped and crimped to the shielded conductor portion on a rear side of the inner housing 11 (a portion where the folded braid W 2 is overlapped on the outer periphery of the case 30), and includes a pair of crimping pieces 23 a, 23 aextending diagonally upward and outward from left and right side edges of a substrate portion 25 extending rearward from the tubular portion 21. The rear sleeve 24 is to be crimped at a position of the sheath W 1 on a rear side of the shielded conductor portion, and similarly to the front sleeve 23, includes a pair of crimping pieces 24 a, 24 aextending diagonally upward and outward from the left and right side edges of the substrate portion 25.Next, a configuration of the mounting device that performs mounting will be briefly described.As illustrated in FIG. 7, the mounting device is provided with an electric wire transfer mechanism 50 that grips the inner-housing electric wire 10 and moves up and down, forward and backward, and right and left, and an application device 80 that performs pressing processing on the wire barrel 22 of the external terminal 20. The electric wire transfer mechanism 50 moves the electric wire W by gripping a portion of the sheath of the electric wire W with an electric wire transfer jig 51. the application device 80 is a unit equipped with an anvil 61 and a crimper 62 forming a crimping die 60, and is configured to crimp and fix the wire barrel 22 of the outer terminal 20 to the electric wire W by pressing the crimper 62 to close the anvil 61 and the crimper 62.The application device 80 is provided with a supporting stopper 70 together with the crimper 62, and the supporting stopper 70 functions to press the outer terminal 20 with a spring 71. The application device 80 is equipped with a servo pressing mechanism (not illustrated) that lowers and raises the crimper 62 and the supporting stopper 70.In the manufacturing method according to the present embodiment, a terminal-equipped electric wire 1 in which a terminal 3 for a shielded electric wire is attached to the end of the electric wire W as illustrated in FIG. 5 is finally manufactured by sequentially passing the following first to fourth steps.First, in the first step, as illustrated in FIG. 7, the outer terminal 20 is placed between the anvil 61 and the crimper 62 to press the wire barrel 22 provided at a rear end portion of the outer terminal 20. Then, the electric wire W is gripped by the electric wire transfer jig 51, and the inner housing 11 attached to the distal end of the electric wire W is disposed over the rear end portion of the outer terminal 20 (an operation indicated by an arrow S 1 in FIG. 7 ). Next, at least a front end portion of the inner housing 11 is lowered toward the wire barrel 22 of the outer terminal 20 as illustrated in FIG. 1 (a process indicated by an arrow S 2 in FIG. 7 ). At this time, as shown in FIG. 2, the wire sleeve 22 in an outwardly opened state guides the downward movement of the inner housing 11.Next, in the second step, as illustrated in FIG. 8, the crimper 62 and the anvil 61 are closed at a first stage (an arrow S 5 in FIG. 8 indicates a process of closing the crimper 62 to an intermediate position), and as illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, the crimping pieces 23 a, 24 aof the wire barrel 22 are deformed inward to form an insertion guide G for the inner housing 11 through the wire barrel 22.Next, in the third step, the inner housing 11 attached to the end of the electric wire W is inserted along the insertion guide G formed by the wire barrel 22 up to an inner predetermined position of the distal end tubular portion 21 of the outer terminal 20 (an operation indicated by an arrow S 3 in FIGS. 3 and 8 ).Next, in the fourth step, after the inner housing 11 is inserted to the predetermined position as illustrated in FIG. 9, the crimper 62 and the anvil 61 are further closed (an operation indicated by an arrow S 6 in FIG. 9 ), and as illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6, the wire barrel 22 is crimped and fixed to the electric wire W extending rearward from the inner housing 11 (main crimping). That is, the front ferrule 23 is crimped and crimped to the shielded conductor portion on the rear side of the inner housing 11 (a portion where the folded braid W 2 is overlapped on the outer periphery of the ferrule 30). The rear sleeve 24 is crimped and fixed at a position of the sheath W 1 on the rear side of the shielded conductor portion. In this way, the terminal-equipped electric wire 1 having the inner housing 11 and the outer terminal 20 is obtained.As the above steps proceed, the movement of the outer terminal 20 in a front-rear direction is restricted by the bracket (not illustrated). Simultaneously with the final main pressing, the carrier is cut by a shear blade to separate the outer terminal 20, but until immediately before the pressing, the outer terminal 20 is positioned by the carrier in the front-rear direction. However, since there is no limitation in an up-down direction, there is a possibility that the tubular portion 21 of the outer terminal 20 may move up and down. Therefore, after the first step, the outer terminal 20 is pressed and held by the supporting stopper 70 from above until the fourth step ends. This allows the inner housing 11 to be easily and accurately inserted.As described above, according to the method for manufacturing the terminal-equipped electric wire of the present embodiment, pressing of the wire barrel 22 of the outer terminal 20 by the crimper 62 and the anvil 61 is stopped at the intermediate position, and the inner housing 11 attached to the end of the electric wire W is inserted into the distal end tubular portion 21 of the outer terminal 20, is deformed inward with the wire barrel 22 as the insertion guide G. In this way, the inner housing 11 can be smoothly inserted into the outer terminal 20 without providing a separate guide mechanism for inserting the inner housing 11 into the outer terminal 20.Therefore, there is an advantage that a separate guide mechanism can be omitted in addition to the crimper 62 and the anvil 61 required for crimping the wire barrel 22. That is, a separate guide mechanism is not required, and ease of assembly can be improved by simply slightly changing steps while maintaining a structure of a related application device. Therefore, the mounting device is not complicated, and mounting work of the inner housing 11 with respect to the outer terminal 20 can be performed without increasing the cost.In addition, the inner housing 11 can be easily inserted into the outer terminal 20 in a state in which the outer terminal 20 is pressed so as not to move by using the supporting stopper 70.The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and modifications, improvements, and the like can be carried out as appropriate. In addition, materials, shapes, sizes, numbers, arrangement positions, and the like of components are freely selected in the above-described embodiment and are not limited as long as the present invention can be implemented.Here, the features of the method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire according to the embodiment of the present invention described above are summarized briefly and listed in below [1] and [2].[1] A method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire (1), wherein the terminal-equipped electric wire (1) is obtained by attaching an outer terminal (20) to an outer periphery of an inner housing (11), the method comprising:a first step of placing the outer terminal (20) between a crimper (62) and an anvil (61) for crimping a wire barrel (22) provided at a rear end portion of the outer terminal (20);a second step of closing the crimper (62) and the anvil (61) to a first stage and deforming the wire barrel (22) inward to form an insertion guide (G) for the inner housing (11) through the wire barrel (22);a third step of inserting the inner housing (11) attached to an end of an electric wire (W) along the insertion guide (G) formed by the wire sleeve (22) to an inner predetermined position of a tubular distal end portion (21) of the outer terminal (20); anda fourth step of further closing the crimper (62) and the anvil (61) to press the wire barrel (22) on the electric wire (W) extending rearward from the inner housing (11) after the inner housing (11) is inserted to the predetermined position.According to the configuration of the above [1], the pressing of the wire barrel (22) of the outer terminal (20) by the crimper (62) and the anvil (61) is temporarily stopped at the intermediate position. Then, the inner housing (11) attached to the end of the electric wire (W) is inserted into the tubular distal end portion (21) of the outer terminal (20), deformed inward with the wire barrel (22) as the insertion guide (G). In this way, the inner housing (11) can be smoothly inserted into the outer terminal (20) without providing a separate guide mechanism for inserting the inner housing (11) into the outer terminal (20). Therefore, there is an advantage that a separate guide mechanism can be omitted in addition to the crimper (62) and the anvil (61) required for crimping the wire barrel (22). That is, since a separate guide mechanism is not required, the mounting apparatus is not complicated, and the mounting work of the inner housing (11) with respect to the outer terminal (20) can be easily performed without increasing the cost.[2] The method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire (1) according to the above [1], wherein the outer terminal (20), after the first step, is pressed and held by a supporting stopper (70) until the fourth step ends.According to the configuration of the above [2], the inner housing (11) can be easily inserted into the outer terminal (20) in a state in which the outer terminal (20) is pressed so as not to move.The present application is based on a Japanese Patent Application (No. 2022-170102) filed on Oct. 24, 2022, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.LIST OF REFERENCE CHARACTERS1 Terminal-equipped electric wire 3 Terminal 11 Inner housing 20 Outer terminal 21 Tubular distal end portion 22 Wire barrel 61 Anvil 62 Crimper W Electric wire G Insertion guideReferences included in the specificationThis list of documents cited by the applicant has been produced in an automated manner and is only included for the better information of the reader. The list is not part of the German patent application or utility model application. The DPMA does not take any adhesion for any faults or omissions.Patent Literature citedJP 3 456 422 B

[0009] JP 2022-170102

[0038]

Claims

A method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire, the terminal-equipped electric wire being obtained by attaching an external terminal to an outer periphery of an inner housing, the method comprising: a first step of placing the external terminal between a crimper and an anvil for pressing a wire barrel provided at a rear end portion of the external terminal; a second step of closing the crimper and the anvil to a first step and deforming the wire barrel inward to form an insertion guide for the inner housing through the wire barrel; a third step of inserting the inner housing attached to an end of an electric wire along the insertion guide formed by the wire barrel to an inner predetermined position of a tubular distal end portion of the outer terminal; and a fourth step of further closing the crimper and the anvil to press the wire barrel to the electric wire extending rearward from the inner housing after the inner housing is inserted to the predetermined position.The method for manufacturing a terminal-equipped electric wire according to claim 1, wherein the outer terminal, after the first step, is pressed and held by a supporting stopper until the fourth step ends.

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