Pivotable Sewing Stations for Rounded Mattress Plates
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing apparatuses for manufacturing mattress plates cannot produce rectangular plates with rounded corners, limiting their adaptability to different bed designs, such as those in the USA, without requiring retooling.
Innovation Solution
The apparatus includes pivotable and translatable lateral sewing stations controlled by a coordinated drive system, allowing for the production of mattress plates with rounded corners and varying dimensions from continuously fed material without retooling, enabling sewing and cutting along curved paths and arbitrary sequences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the apparatus uses fixed lateral sewing stations arranged on a crossbar, then the structure is simple and stable, but it cannot produce mattress plates with rounded corners or varying dimensions
Solution Approach 1:
The lateral sewing stations are made movable along the crossbar through a translatory drive mechanism, allowing their position to be dynamically adjusted. This enables the apparatus to produce mattress plates with varying dimensions and rounded corners while maintaining a relatively simple overall structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The crossbar serves multiple functions: it supports the lateral sewing stations, provides a guide for their translatory movement, and acts as a structural element of the base frame. This multi-functionality reduces the need for additional components while enabling shape and dimension variability.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the apparatus is designed for fixed dimensions, then manufacturing precision is maintained, but adaptability to different bed designs is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The control device receives positioning information from the translatory and rotary drives and coordinates the feeding drive accordingly. This closed-loop control ensures that even with movable sewing stations, the manufacturing precision is maintained by synchronizing material feed with the changing sewing station positions.
Solution Approach 2:
The apparatus allows changing of geometric parameters (position of sewing stations, radius of rounded corners, dimensions of mattress plates) through the controllable translatory and rotary drives, while the control device maintains precision by coordinating these parameter changes with the material feeding rate.
3Productivity
If retooling is required for different dimensions, then manufacturing precision is ensured, but productivity is reduced due to stopping and retooling
Solution Approach 1:
The movable lateral sewing stations enable continuous production of mattress plates with different dimensions without stopping the apparatus. The translatory drive allows the sewing stations to be repositioned during operation, eliminating retooling time and maintaining continuous material feeding through the coordination with the feeding drive.
Solution Approach 2:
The dynamic positioning capability of the lateral sewing stations allows the apparatus to adapt to different production requirements on-the-fly, converting what would traditionally require retooling and stopping into a continuous process with minimal interruption.
4Shape
If the sewing stations are made movable with translatory and rotary drives, then shape variability is achieved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The translatory and rotary drive mechanisms are integrated into the existing crossbar structure of the base frame. The control device combines the control of both drives with the feeding drive, creating a coordinated system that achieves complex shapes without requiring separate independent systems for each function.
Solution Approach 2:
The crossbar structure serves as both a support element and a guide rail for the lateral sewing stations' translatory movement. This multi-functional design reduces the need for additional structural components while enabling the complex positioning required for rounded corners and curved sewing paths.
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus for the production of rectangular mattress plates from a length of material includes a base frame, a feed drive for feeding the length of material in a transport direction (A), two lateral sewing stations, each provided with a longitudinal sewing head for producing a lateral seam and with a longitudinal cutter, a transverse sewing station provided with a transverse sewing head and a transverse cutter that can be moved along a crossbeam, and a control device for controlling the feed drive, the transverse drive, the lateral sewing stations, and the transverse sewing station. The lateral sewing stations are each pivotable by a rotary drive about an axis extending perpendicularly with regard to the plane of a transport path of the material and moveable along crossbeams by a translatory drive. The translatory drive and the rotary drive are controllable by the control device in coordination with the feed drive.