Medicine Dispensing Apparatus Temporary Reserving Structure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Medicine dispensing apparatuses face challenges in maintaining efficient operation and user security when using general-purpose medicine feeders, which lack clear partition members and have complex maintenance requirements due to the frequent operation of temporary reserving structures, leading to increased maintenance burdens and potential for excessive medicine discharge.
Innovation Solution
The apparatus incorporates a temporary reserving structure at the lower end of the medicine guide structure, allowing for manual extraction and return of excessively discharged medicines, and reconfigures the electric motor's location to facilitate easier maintenance by placing it in front of the temporary reserving structure, enabling automatic and manual control for efficient packing and reducing maintenance complexity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If general-purpose medicine feeders without clear partition members are used, then versatility and ease of operation are improved, but reliability deteriorates due to potential excessive medicine discharge
Solution Approach 1:
A sensor is introduced as an intermediary between the general-purpose medicine feeder and the packing device. The sensor detects whether medicine has been properly discharged and provides feedback to the control unit, which then controls the opening/closing of the temporary reserving structure. This intermediary detection mechanism ensures reliable discharge control while maintaining the versatility of general-purpose feeders without clear partition members.
2Productivity
If temporary reserving structure operation is made frequent to ensure packing efficiency, then productivity is improved, but device complexity increases due to maintenance requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The control unit operates the temporary reserving structure based on feedback from the sensor that detects medicine discharge status. The structure is opened only when the sensor confirms proper discharge and closed when excessive discharge is detected or during packing operations. This feedback-based control optimizes the frequency of operation, maintaining high productivity while reducing unnecessary operations that would increase maintenance complexity.
3Device complexity
If electric motor is placed in traditional location for compactness, then device complexity is reduced, but ease of repair deteriorates due to difficult access
Solution Approach 1:
The electric motor is extracted from its traditional integrated location and repositioned to a separate, more accessible location on the apparatus. This allows the motor to be easily accessed for maintenance and repair operations while still being functionally connected to the temporary reserving structure through drive mechanisms. The extraction resolves the contradiction by prioritizing ease of repair without significantly increasing overall device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A medicine dispensing apparatus gives a sense of stable operation of discharge of excessive medicines when used with general-purpose medicine feeders. A temporary reserving structure is provided at the lower end portion of a medicine guide structure configured to guide medicines discharged from a general-purpose medicine feeder of a non-cassette, fixed container portion type so as to fall down, the temporary reserving structure being operable to temporarily reserve the medicines and cause the medicines to collectively fall down. When it is detected that an excessive medicine has been discharged from the medicine feeder, packing operation is temporarily stopped and the temporary reserving structure is caused to reserve the medicines, and an operation to draw out medicine feeder mount portions is allowed, and thereafter resumption of the packing operation is allowed when it is detected that the medicine feeder mount portions are drawn out and pushed back.