Chip Conveyor Scrapers Prevent Guide Plate Accumulation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional chip conveyors suffer from chip accumulation under the chip guide plate, leading to operational hindrances and filter clogging when immersed in a coolant tank, causing breakdowns and reduced smooth operation.
Innovation Solution
A chip conveyor design featuring annular endless chains, a support mechanism, and a drive mechanism with a chip guide plate and scrapers that form both forward and return paths, allowing chips to be conveyed from the machining region to a discharge port while preventing accumulation under the guide plate by ensuring sliding contact with both the guide plate and the cover body, and incorporating through holes in scrapers to reduce coolant resistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If chips are conveyed through a chip guide plate with an opening at the beginning of the conveyance path, then chips can be discharged from the machining region, but chips enter the space under the chip guide plate and accumulate there
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies inversion by making the scrapers perform dual functions: they not only scrape chips from the forward path but also actively scrape chips from the return path space under the chip guide plate. This reverses the conventional unidirectional scraping action and uses the return path scrapers to clear chips that would otherwise accumulate, thereby preventing operational interruptions while maintaining continuous chip discharge capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent ensures continuous chip removal by positioning scrapers at both the forward path and return path. The return path scrapers continuously scrape chips from the space under the chip guide plate as the chains move, preventing accumulation and ensuring uninterrupted operation. This continuous action on both paths eliminates the need to stop the conveyor for chip removal
2Reliability
If the chip conveyor is immersed in a coolant tank with a filter in the cover body, then coolant can be purified, but the filter becomes clogged quickly when chips accumulate under the chip guide plate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by using the return path scrapers to remove chips from the space under the chip guide plate before these chips can fall into the coolant tank and clog the filter. This preventive scraping action occurs continuously during normal operation, eliminating the need for filter maintenance and avoiding operational downtime
3Ease of operation
If scrapers are configured to scrape chips upward on the chip guide plate, then powdery chips do not adhere to scrapers, but curly chips may be caught and entangled around the scrapers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent converts the potential harm of curly chip entanglement into a benefit by using the return path scrapers to dislodge and scrape off entangled chips from the forward path scrapers. The return path scrapers act as a cleaning mechanism, removing caught chips and preventing them from causing operational problems, thereby transforming the entanglement issue into an opportunity for automatic chip removal
Data Source
AI summary
A chip conveyor includes a pair of endless chains arranged in parallel, a drive mechanism turning the endless chains, a cover body having a chip receiving port and a chip discharge port at a beginning and an end of a forward path of the endless chains, respectively, scrapers connected to the endless chains therebetween, and a chip guide plate disposed along the endless chains to be in sliding contact with the scrapers. The chip guide plate is composed of a forward path corresponding part extending from the receiving port to the discharge port and a return path corresponding part bent toward a return path at the receiving port and extended along the return path. The scrapers are in sliding contact with both the return path corresponding part and a surface of the cover body facing the return path corresponding part when in sliding contact with the return path corresponding part.