Teaching method and teaching assist jig

Abstract

To reduce a work burden of a worker in teaching.SOLUTION: A teaching method of a sampling device including an arm that three dimensionally moves in a state in which a metal needle for performing sampling from a sample container is held in a vertical direction, and a control unit that controls an operation of the arm, the teaching method includes a step of disposing a magnet at a sampling position where a tip of the needle is to be disposed during the sampling, a step of causing a user to move the arm to a position where a magnetic force of the magnet acts on the needle after the disposing step, a step of aligning the tip of the needle with the sampling position using the magnetic force of the magnet after the moving step, and a storing step of causing the control unit to store a position of the arm in a state in which the tip of the needle is aligned with the sampling position after the aligning step.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a teaching method for a sampling device and a teaching assist jig. [Background technology]

[0002] Sampling devices such as autosamplers and liquid handlers for liquid chromatographs are devices that access a needle into a sample container placed at a predetermined position, aspirate the sample from the tip of the needle, and inject the aspirated sample into the mobile phase flowing toward the separation column (see Patent Document 1).

[0003] In sampling devices such as those described above, when initially setting up the device or when replacing the rack on which the sample container is placed, it is necessary to perform teaching to have the control unit memorize the sampling position where the needle should be placed when sampling from a sample container. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0004] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2023-000074 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0005] When teaching a sampling device, an operator typically adjusts the needle position so that the needle tip is at the sampling position while visually checking the needle position. However, visual teaching requires the operator to operate the needle movement mechanism while checking the needle position and making fine adjustments to the needle's position in three directions (horizontal, depth, and height), which places a heavy burden on the operator. In particular, it is difficult to confirm whether the needle tip is in the correct position when aligning the needle depth, so teaching is often performed while checking the needle tip position using a mirror. Furthermore, with large sampling devices, the number of positions that must be taught increases, which increases the time required for teaching.

[0006] The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and aims to reduce the workload of workers in teaching. [Means for solving the problem]

[0007] The teaching method of the present invention is a teaching method for a sampling device including an arm that moves three-dimensionally while holding a metal needle for sampling from a sample container in a vertical orientation, and a control unit that controls the movement of the arm, placing a magnet at a sampling position where the tip of the needle is to be placed during the sampling; After the placing step, a step in which a user moves the arm to a position where the magnetic force of the magnet acts on the needle; After the moving step, aligning the tip of the needle with respect to the sampling position using the magnetic force of the magnet; a storing step of storing, in the control unit, the position of the arm in a state where the tip of the needle is aligned with the sampling position after the aligning step; It is equipped with:

[0008] The teaching assist jig of the present invention is a teaching assist jig for an autosampler having a metal needle, and has a main body portion having an upper surface and a attracting portion placed on a sampling position on the upper surface, and the attracting portion moves the needle that has approached the sampling position toward the sampling position. [Effects of the Invention]

[0009] According to the teaching method of the present invention, a magnet is placed at the sampling position where the tip of the needle should be placed during sampling, and the user moves the arm to a position where the magnetic force of the magnet acts on the needle, and the magnetic force of the magnet is used to align the tip of the needle with the sampling position.This eliminates the need to make fine adjustments while visually checking whether the tip of the needle is at the sampling position, reducing the workload of the worker during teaching.

[0010] The teaching assistance jig of the present invention has a pull-out portion that is placed at the sampling position and is configured to move the needle that approaches the sampling position toward the sampling position, thereby reducing the workload of the operator during teaching. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0011] [Figure 1] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of the configuration of a sampling device. [Figure 2] 10 is a flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a teaching method. [Figure 3] FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a state in which a rack holding a container-shaped teaching assist jig is placed in a sampling device. [Figure 4] FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of a state in which the tip of a needle is brought close to a magnet of a teaching assist jig. [Figure 5] FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of a state in which the tip of a needle is attracted to a magnet of a teaching assist jig. [Figure 6]FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a state after fine adjustment of the position of the arm from the state shown in FIG. 5. [Figure 7] FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a state in which a rack-type teaching assist jig is placed on a sampling device. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0012] An embodiment of a teaching method and a teaching assist jig according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

[0013] Figure 1 shows an example of a sampling device.

[0014] The sampling device 1 includes a needle 2, an arm 4, an X-axis motor 6, a Y-axis motor 8, a Z-axis motor 10, and a control unit 12. A rack 14 that holds a plurality of sample containers 16 is arranged at a predetermined position within the sampling device 1.

[0015] The needle 2 is used to perform sampling by sucking a sample from a sample container 16. The needle 2 is held vertically by an arm 4 with its tip pointing vertically downward. The arm 4 is moved in the X-axis and Y-axis directions, which are perpendicular to each other in a horizontal plane, by an X-axis motor 6 and a Y-axis motor 8, and is moved in the Z-axis direction, which is the vertical direction, by a Z-axis motor 10. The X-axis motor 6, the Y-axis motor 8, and the Z-axis motor 10 are each a stepping motor.

[0016] The operation of the X-axis motor 6, Y-axis motor 8, and Z-axis motor 10 is controlled by a control unit 12. The control unit 12 stores the sampling positions where the needle 2 should be positioned to perform sampling from each sample container 16. During sampling, the control unit 12 controls the operation of the X-axis motor 6, Y-axis motor 8, and Z-axis motor 10 to move the needle 2 to the sampling position for performing sampling from the sample container 16 to be sampled. Information about each sampling position is stored in the control unit 12 by teaching that is performed in advance. The control unit 12 is realized by a computer circuit equipped with a CPU (central processing unit) and information storage memory.

[0017] An embodiment of the teaching method will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 2 and to FIGS.

[0018] A teaching assist jig is used for teaching. Figure 3 shows an example in which a container-shaped teaching assist jig 18 is used. As shown in Figure 3, the container-shaped teaching assist jig 18 is held by the rack 14 instead of the sample container 16. The teaching assist jig 18 has a magnet 20 on its top, and is configured so that the magnet 20 is positioned at the sampling position when the rack 14 is placed at a predetermined position within the sampling device 1. By placing the rack 14 holding the teaching assist jig 18 at a predetermined position within the sampling device 1, the magnet 20 is positioned at the sampling position (step 101).

[0019] It is preferable that the teaching assist jig 18 is configured to be fixed to the rack 14 so that the teaching assist jig 18 does not float up when the needle 2 is brought close to the magnet 20.

[0020] Next, as shown in FIG. 4 , the tip of the needle 2 approaches the magnet 20 arranged at the sampling position, and the operator manually moves the arm 4 so that the magnetic force of the magnet 20 acts on the needle 2 (step 102). At this time, it is preferable that the excitation of the X-axis motor 6, the Y-axis motor 8, and the Z-axis motor 10 is turned off, so that the operator can freely move the arm 4 by hand, and the arm 4 moves due to the magnetic force of the magnet 20 acting on the needle 2. When the tip of the needle 2 approaches the magnet 20, the magnetic force of the magnet 20 attracts the tip of the needle 2 to the magnet 20 and makes contact with it. As a result, the tip of the needle 2 is automatically aligned with the sampling position (step 103).

[0021] The operator checks whether the needle 2 is oriented vertically with the tip of the needle 2 in contact with the magnet 20 due to magnetic force (step 104). If the tip of the needle 2 is attracted to the magnet 20 and the needle 2 is tilted from the vertical as shown in Fig. 5 (step 104: No), the operator manually fine-tunes the position of the arm 4 (step 105) to bring the needle 2 to the vertical position as shown in Fig. 6 (step 104: Yes). The position coordinates of the arm 4 when the needle 2 is oriented vertically with the tip of the needle 2 in contact with the magnet 20 are stored as a sampling position in the control unit 12 (step 106).

[0022] If there are multiple sampling positions to be stored in the control unit 12, the above steps 101 to 106 are repeatedly executed for each sampling position (step 107: No), and when the above steps are completed for all sampling positions, teaching is completed (step 107: Yes).

[0023] Here, the position coordinates of the arm 4 can be defined as the rotation angles (number of steps) of the X-axis motor 6, Y-axis motor 8, and Z-axis motor 10 from the home position of the arm 4. The X-axis motor 6, Y-axis motor 8, and Z-axis motor 10 are provided with counters that count the number of steps, and when an operator manually moves the arm 4 during teaching, the number of steps of the X-axis motor 6, Y-axis motor 8, and Z-axis motor 10 corresponding to the movement distance in each direction is counted. The control unit 12 can read the position coordinates of the arm when the tip of the needle 2 is at the sampling position from the counts of the counters of the X-axis motor 6, Y-axis motor 8, and Z-axis motor 10.

[0024] Incidentally, in teaching, a rack-type teaching assist jig 18' as shown in Figure 7 can be used instead of the container-type teaching assist jig 18 shown in Figure 3. The rack-type teaching assist jig 18' has the same shape and size as the rack 14, but has a magnet 20 fixed to a specific position on the top surface (the position where the sample container 16 is held in the rack 14). The rack-type teaching assist jig 18' can be used by placing it in a predetermined position within the sampling device 1 in place of the rack 14.

[0025] The above embodiment is merely one example of the teaching method and teaching assist jig according to the present invention. The teaching method and teaching assist jig according to the present invention are embodied as follows.

[0026] One embodiment of a teaching method according to the present invention is a teaching method for a sampling device, comprising: The sampling device includes an arm that moves three-dimensionally while holding a metal needle for sampling from a sample container in a vertical direction, and a control unit that controls the operation of the arm, The teaching method includes: placing a magnet at a sampling position where the tip of the needle is to be placed during the sampling; After the placing step, having a user move the arm to a position where the magnetic force of the magnet acts on the needle; After the moving step, aligning the tip of the needle with respect to the sampling position using the magnetic force of the magnet; a storing step of storing, in the control unit, the position of the arm in a state where the tip of the needle is aligned with the sampling position after the aligning step; It is equipped with:

[0027] In a first aspect of the above embodiment of the teaching method, in the alignment step, the position of the arm is adjusted so that the tip of the needle attracted to the magnet is in contact with the magnet and the needle is oriented vertically.

[0028] In a second aspect of the embodiment of the teaching method, in the placing step, a rack to which the magnet is fixed is placed at a position where a rack for holding the sample containers is to be placed. This second aspect can be combined with the first aspect.

[0029] One embodiment of a teaching assist jig according to the present invention is a teaching assist jig for an autosampler having a metal needle, and has a main body portion having an upper surface and a attracting portion placed on a sampling position on the upper surface, and the attracting portion moves the needle approaching the sampling position toward the sampling position.

[0030] A first aspect of the teaching assist jig is a container-shaped jig that is placed at a predetermined position on the sampling device in place of the sample container.

[0031] A second aspect of the teaching assist jig according to the embodiment is a rack-type jig that is placed at a predetermined position on the sampling device in place of a rack for placing the sample container thereon.

[0032] In a third aspect of the above embodiment of the teaching assist jig, the attracting portion is a magnet. [Explanation of symbols]

[0033] 1. Sampling device 2 needles 4 Arm 6 X-axis motor 8 Y-axis motor 10 Z-axis motor 12 Control Unit 14 racks 16 sample containers 18 Container-shaped teaching aid jig 18' Rack-type teaching aid jig 20 Magnet

Claims

1. A method for teaching a sampling device, comprising: The sampling device includes an arm that moves three-dimensionally while holding a metal needle for sampling from a sample container in a vertical direction, and a control unit that controls the operation of the arm, The teaching method includes: placing a magnet at a sampling position where the tip of the needle is to be placed during the sampling; After the placing step, a step in which a user moves the arm to a position where the magnetic force of the magnet acts on the needle; After the moving step, aligning the tip of the needle with respect to the sampling position using the magnetic force of the magnet; a storing step of storing, in the control unit, the position of the arm in a state where the tip of the needle is aligned with the sampling position after the aligning step; A teaching method comprising:

2. 2. The teaching method according to claim 1, wherein the positioning step includes adjusting the position of the arm so that the needle is oriented vertically with the tip of the needle attracted to the magnet in contact with the magnet.

3. 2. The teaching method according to claim 1, wherein in the placing step, a rack to which the magnet is fixed is placed at a position where a rack for holding the sample containers is to be placed.

4. A teaching assist jig for an autosampler having a metal needle, a body portion having an upper surface; a pull-out portion placed at a sampling position on the upper surface, The attracting portion moves the needle that has approached the sampling position toward the sampling position.

5. The teaching assist jig according to claim 4 , wherein the teaching assist jig is a container-shaped jig that is placed at a predetermined position of the sampling device in place of the sample container.

6. 5. The teaching assist jig according to claim 4, wherein the teaching assist jig is a rack-type jig that is placed at a predetermined position of the sampling device in place of a rack for placing the sample container thereon.

7. The teaching aid according to claim 4 , wherein the attracting portion is a magnet.

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