Tube Storage Elevator Units for Textile Machine Tube Delivery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing tube storage and transport devices for textile machines producing cross-wound packages are complex, costly, and inefficient, particularly for two-row machines where tip-oriented delivery of empty tubes is required, leading to frequent repairs and suboptimal clock times.
Innovation Solution
A tube storage and transport device featuring at least two elevator units with vertically displaceable holders oriented in the longitudinal direction, connected to empty-tube conveyor belts, allowing for direct and rapid transfer of empty tubes without the need for a tube turner or rotating gripper, reducing complexity and improving supply efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a complex transport device with linked circulating individual transport elements is used, then the textile machine can be supplied with empty tubes, but the device becomes costly and requires frequent repairs
Solution Approach 1:
The tube magazine is divided into multiple elevator units, each independently supplying tubes to specific workstation sides. This segmentation allows localized tube supply without requiring a complex centralized transport system, reducing overall device complexity while maintaining supply reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
Elevator units serve as intermediary components between the tube magazine and the conveyor belts. These elevators transfer tubes vertically from storage to the conveyor level, eliminating the need for complex rotating grippers or turners while ensuring reliable tube supply to both machine sides.
2Ease of operation
If a tube turner or rotating gripper is used to deliver tubes tip-oriented, then tubes can be supplied to workstations on both sides, but the device complexity increases and clock times worsen
Solution Approach 1:
Tubes are pre-oriented in the tube magazine during storage, with their tips already positioned in the correct direction for delivery to workstations on both sides. This preliminary orientation eliminates the need for time-consuming tube turning operations, reducing clock time while maintaining ease of operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from horizontal tube orientation adjustment (requiring rotation) to vertical tube placement (elevator-based). By utilizing the vertical dimension through elevator units, tubes are delivered tip-oriented without requiring rotational movement, thereby reducing both device complexity and operational time.
3Ease of operation
If separate conveyor belts are installed for each workstation side, then tip-oriented tube delivery is achieved, but the device becomes more complex and costly
Solution Approach 1:
The elevator units serve multiple functions: they store tubes vertically, orient them tip-forward, and transfer them to conveyor belts on both machine sides. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate dedicated conveyor systems for each side, reducing overall device complexity while maintaining tip-oriented delivery capability.
Data Source
AI summary
A tube storage and transport device for a textile machine producing cross-wound packages, which has a plurality of similar workstations arranged side-by-side on both longitudinal machine sides, having a central tube magazine and two empty-tube conveyor belts arranged in the region of the longitudinal machine sides is provided. To improve the known tube storage and transport devices, and in particular to optimize the clock times that can be achieved during the empty-tube delivery, the tube magazine has at least two elevator units, that the elevator units have stacked and vertically displaceable holders for empty tubes, that the holders are designed for the empty tubes to be set down in a manner oriented the longitudinal direction of the machine, and that each of the elevator units is connected to one of the empty-tube conveyor belts and is designed in such a way that empty tubes are removed from the elevator units from the longitudinal machine side and transferred onto the empty-tube conveyor belts.