Pivoting Tool Magazine Arm with Arc Track Gripper
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional tool magazines for machine tools require complex mechanisms to maintain tool angle and posture during transfer, leading to increased width dimensions and reduced storage efficiency due to the need for horizontal movement mechanisms.
Innovation Solution
A tool magazine design featuring a pivotable magazine arm with a tool pot and gripper plates that hold tools in a suspended manner on a circular arc track, eliminating the need for additional angle and posture maintenance mechanisms, and allowing for independent height adjustment of gripper plates to optimize tool storage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If conventional tool magazines use horizontal movement mechanisms to transfer tools, then tool transfer operations can be performed, but the width dimension of the tool magazine increases and storage efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a circular arc track instead of a straight horizontal path for tool transfer. The magazine arm pivots along a circular arc trajectory, and the gripper is positioned to hold tools on this curved path. This curvature allows the tool to be transferred while naturally maintaining its angle and posture, eliminating the need for additional horizontal movement mechanisms and reducing the overall width dimension of the tool magazine.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention transitions from a conventional horizontal linear movement mechanism to a pivoting arm system that operates in a different dimensional space. By using a magazine arm that rotates around a pivot point with tools moving along a circular arc, the system achieves tool transfer through angular displacement rather than linear horizontal movement, thereby reducing the width requirement.
2Stability of the object's composition
If conventional tool magazines include mechanisms to maintain tool angle and posture, then tool orientation is preserved during transfer, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system allows the tool to maintain its angle and posture automatically through the geometry of the circular arc track and the pivoting motion of the magazine arm. The tool's orientation is preserved by the natural constraints of the circular path and the gripper positioning, without requiring additional active control mechanisms or complex angle maintenance devices.
Solution Approach 2:
The circular arc track geometry inherently maintains tool orientation during transfer. As the magazine arm pivots along the curved path, the tool held on this track naturally maintains its angle and posture relative to the track geometry, eliminating the need for separate angle maintenance mechanisms.
3Device complexity
If conventional tool magazines use fixed gripper plate positions, then the structure is simplified, but storage capacity and adaptability to different tool lengths are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The gripper plate is designed to be adjustable in height along the circular arc track, transforming it from a fixed static component to a dynamic adjustable one. This allows the gripper plate to be positioned at different heights to accommodate tools of varying lengths, thereby increasing storage capacity and adaptability without significantly complicating the overall structure.
Data Source
AI summary
A tool magazine includes a magazine arm and a gripper plate. The magazine arm has a tool pot to hold a tool. The magazine arm is pivotable around a pivotal axis such that the tool pot pivots around the pivotal axis. The gripper plate has at least one gripper to hold the tool at a holding position on a circular arc track along which the tool moves when the magazine arm pivots. The at least one gripper is open in a tangent direction of the circular arc track at the holding position.