Variable-Stroke Gripper for Tray Sealing Productivity
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing tray sealing machines require a long stroke length for gripper fingers to handle sealed packagings, leading to increased stroke motion time and reduced productivity.
Innovation Solution
A tray sealing machine with a gripper device featuring synchronously adjustable first and second tray grippers that perform a closing motion with a speed adjustment relative to the conveyor belt speed, allowing gripper fingers to immerse into position windows between trays and packagings along a predetermined trajectory, optimizing the motion to ensure precise and efficient transport.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If extended gripper fingers are used to grip sealed packagings in advance, then the gripper can take up packagings before the first gripper unit arrives, but the stroke length increases leading to longer motion time and reduced productivity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies dynamics by making the gripper finger length variable rather than fixed. The extension element can extend the gripper fingers when needed to grip packagings in advance, and retract them when not needed. This dynamic adjustment allows the system to achieve both precise positioning (by extending to grip early) and high productivity (by retracting to reduce stroke length), resolving the technical contradiction between reliability and productivity.
2Ease of operation
If the gripper device uses a long stroke to accommodate extended gripper fingers, then it can perform closing motion before the first gripper unit, but the stroke motion time increases reducing overall productivity
Solution Approach 1:
The extension element provides dynamic control over gripper finger length, allowing the system to extend fingers for early closing operation when needed, then retract them to minimize stroke length and motion time. This resolves the contradiction between ease of operation (ability to close early) and loss of time (stroke duration).
Solution Approach 2:
The extension element enables preliminary action by allowing the second gripper unit to extend its fingers and perform closing motion on packagings before the first gripper unit arrives. This preliminary gripping action improves operational flexibility while the subsequent retraction minimizes the impact on overall cycle time.
Data Source
AI summary
A tray sealing machine comprises a gripper device including first and second tray grippers that operate together to take up trays provided by a feed unit and transport them to a sealing station that is downstream in a production direction. A speed of the first and second tray grippers in the production direction when respectively performing a closing motion from a respective initial position toward a respective closing position can be accelerated such that the speed of the first and second tray grippers in the production direction relative to a belt speed of the feed unit during a predetermined first time interval is slower than the belt speed, and during a subsequent predetermined second time interval until the respective closing position has been reached is greater than the belt speed, so that gripper fingers on the first and second tray grippers immerse into respective position windows located between the trays.