Development Of Micro Inductors Automatic Production Machine And Related Studies

The great needs for communication devices, IT products and consume digital products dramatically promote the growth of chip inductor industries, and the demand quantity reaches tens of billions for chip inductors. However, the characteristic of shape irregularity and type variety makes it not an easy thing to organize massive production like other chip components. Traditional productive enterprises in Japan or US either focus on the research of materials used in multilayer chip inductors, either on the development of fine spot welder. They are not free to involve in the invention of automatic machine for wire wound chip inductors. Up to the present wound chip inductors are still mainly produced by manual through recuiting large numbers of young workwomen, which is low efficiency and lack of quality guarantee.In this paper, a kind of automatic wire wound chip inductor machine with entire intellectual property rights and high automatization and high reliability will be developed. It will be the first equipment in China to integrate the process of core feeding, positioning, clamping, wire winding, welding etc. to realize automatic production for DO1608 chip inductors.The machine consists of automatic feeding mechanism, pick-and-drop robot arm, auto-positioning and clamping mechanism, winding mechanism, needle mechanism, spot welder, CCD monitor and so on. In this paper, mechanism movements are detailedly analyzed and their structures are designed. The key technology, Pressure Following Mechanism, is also researched.The control system adopt Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) to be the main CPU, realizing the motion control for x and y welding worktable and the pressure control to spot weld for z welding worktable. In addition, the PLC also controls the electromagnetic valves by swithing signals to manipulate the cylinders in the pick-and-drop robot arm, clamping mechanism, wire feeding and snaping mechnism, removing nozzle and so on. Two motion control units, FX2N-20GM, are utilized as auxiliary units for PLC, and one of them controls the x and y feeding of noddle workstable to realize the location of wire tail and the feeding or snaping action, the other realizes the linkage motion of winding and pitching of enamelled wire. Touch panel is used as the main control panel and the graphical termination to set procedural parameters and monitor working status.The successful development of the micro inductor automatic production machine will not only increase the efficiency of chip inductors, cut down the cost of production, improve the quality of inductors and enhance enterprise competitive, but also upgrade the automization level of our chip component machines and promote the growth of chip inductor industries of our country.