AUTOMATIC LINE FOR MAKING, TESTING AND SORTING COILED SPRINGS Russian patent published in 1994 - IPC

FIELD: automotive industry. SUBSTANCE: rod blanks are fed by loader into heating furnace and from there into spring making machine. After springs are hardened, tempered and treated in shot-blast unit they are fed piece-by-piece into sections of step conveyer for checking spring force. To this end spring is fed to forced compression mechanism, where first power cylinder introduces tapered arbor into end face of spring and shifts it by its rod along conveyer section to second tapered arbor. After spring has been seated on second tapered arbor and subjected to check compression it is conveyed into load measuring device, where similar tapered arbor is introduced in one of its end faces by second power cylinder. When spring is being shifted by this power cylinder to second arbor mounted on bar, the latter moves in guides of device body and its end face comes in contact with force cell. After that special mechanism imparts rotary motion to bar. In the course of bar rotation spring coils are wound on arbor mounted on bar and then on other arbor mounted on rod of second power cylinder. Further movement of rod of second power cylinder results in spring compression and force developed by spring at specified deformation is measured with the aid of force cell. During reverse stroke of power cylinder rod spring is taken off arbors and fed into sorting mechanism, where pushers direct it to one of discharge chutes. EFFECT: improved efficiency. 6 cl, 7 dwg