Assembly station with rotatable turret which forms and unloads a completed stack of articles
First Claim
1. An apparatus for forming stacks of articles, comprising:
- a first article feeder station presenting a plurality of first articles at a first loading position;
a second article feeder station presenting a plurality of second articles of a characteristic different size than the first articles at a second loading position; and
a bidirectionally rotatable turret assembly comprising;
a first stacker arm supported by the turret assembly and selectively movable in either a clockwise direction or a counterclockwise direction to a selected one of the first and second loading positions; and
a second stacker arm supported by the turret assembly and responsively movable, by the selected movement of the first stacker arm, to another loading position; and
end effectors independently operable on each of the stacker arms, each end effector having a mandrel sized to simultaneously support a plurality of the first and second articles from the respective feeder stations to form alternating stacks of the first and second articles on both stacker arms.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Method and apparatus for forming and unloading a completed stack of articles. An assembly station includes a rotatable turret from which at least one stacker arm projects. The turret rotates to each of a number of article loading positions to sequentially load articles onto the arm in a desired order. The turret is then advanced to allow the articles to be concurrently unloaded from the stacker arm at an unloading position. In an automated disc drive manufacturing environment, the articles comprise respective numbers of magnetic recording discs and intervening disc spacers which are arranged into a disc/spacer stack as the stacker arm is advanced to a number of disc feeder and spacer feeder stations. The completed disc/spacer stack is then unloaded onto a spindle motor hub. Additional arms preferably project from the turret so that, as the turret rotates, multiple stacks are simultaneously formed and sequentially unloaded.
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Citations
7 Claims
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1. An apparatus for forming stacks of articles, comprising:
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a first article feeder station presenting a plurality of first articles at a first loading position; a second article feeder station presenting a plurality of second articles of a characteristic different size than the first articles at a second loading position; and a bidirectionally rotatable turret assembly comprising; a first stacker arm supported by the turret assembly and selectively movable in either a clockwise direction or a counterclockwise direction to a selected one of the first and second loading positions; and a second stacker arm supported by the turret assembly and responsively movable, by the selected movement of the first stacker arm, to another loading position; and end effectors independently operable on each of the stacker arms, each end effector having a mandrel sized to simultaneously support a plurality of the first and second articles from the respective feeder stations to form alternating stacks of the first and second articles on both stacker arms. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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Specification