Design of an automatic feeding device in rotary cultivator blade shaft welding equipment

Abstract

Rotary cultivator is one of key equipments in modern agricultural machinery. It is a kind of great practicability and versatility tillage and soil preparation machinery with good performance in cutting soil, broken soil ability, etc. Blade shaft assembly is the key components in rotary cultivator, and it is composed of a shaft weldment and a series of blades fixed in a blade holder respectively. The shaft weldment consists of a shaft tube and a series of blade holders welded on the shaft tube into a positive and a negative spiral line. At present, there are two kinds of blade holder feeding during welding process of the shaft weldment. One is that a blade holder is placed at a right position manually by means of a fixture. The other way is to convey each blade holder at the right position by using a universal robot with a special jig. The former is strong labor intensity and cannot assure stability of quality. The latter price is so high that general small and medium-sized enterprises cannot afford. Therefore design of an automatic feeding device of blade holder in rotary cultivator blade shaft welding equipment is presented in this paper. The welding process of a blade shaft weldment was completed in a single set-up of the shaft tube with the help of the automatic feeding device and two welding torches. It consists of a blade holder library with chain conveyer, a vertical linear guide, a pneumatic finger and a feeding device frame fixed on horizontal linear guide sliding along bed guide. A Programmable Logic Controller is to command and control each parts press working procedure of the automatic feeding device coordinate. It can achieve automation of grab, feeding and placement of all blade holders and assures that the blade holder feeding device and other devices in welding equipment work coordinate automatically. It can replace a universal robot to realize welding automation of the shaft weldment. Moreover the biggest advantage of it is easy to operate and low cost.