This design challenge aims to create an innovative mechanism to optimize the manufacturing process and assembly fixture design.
The whole dispenser system is in 0.5 meters x 0.5 meters layout, the height of the system is 0.4 meter. It consists of five parts: 1. Toothbrush storage block; 2. Toothpaste dispenser system; 3. Toothbrush fixture system; 4. Transfer disk; 5. conveyor. |
The left hand graph shows the structure of the dispenser. The video could help explain how it works. Assume the dispenser is full of toothpaste at first. When the nozzle moves towards the right side, the check valve is closed. The air pressure will push check valve 2 towards to right side, resulting the toothpaste to be pulled out from the toothpaste tube. After moving the nozzle at a distance of L, then the nozzle moves back, while check valve 2 will be closed and check valve will open. So the toothpaste could be dispensed to the toothbrush. After dispensing, The check valve is closed to cut the toothpaste. Then the dispenser move forward again, which helps cut the toothpaste and prevent the toothpaste from dripping on the sides. Through calculation, the accuracy is within 0.0721g
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The toothbrush slider
and the chucks are to fix the toothbrush. There are rotating springs in the
chucks to keep them in original position when no force applied. The linear motor will drive the slider to move forward, driving the chucks to rotate around the rotating axes of the chucks, in that
way, the chucks could help fix the toothbrush. When the toothpaste dispensation
finishes, the slider move back and the chucks rotate back to the original
position. Then the slide screw rotates and moves the toothbrush slider in the
direction of the axis of slide screw, transporting the
toothbrush to the next machine. The whole process is shown in the video ‘Toothpaste
system’.
In a nutshell, the whole system is reliable and compact, which utilizes features that are inherent to the toothbrush and aligns to the holder. The above is comment from one manufacturing engineer. |