JP2642770B2 - Pharmaceutical packaging machine and its conveyor control device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Object of the Invention] Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a medicine packaging for automatically selecting and packing one or several kinds of medicines based on a different prescription for each patient in a hospital or a pharmacy. Machine and its conveyor control device.

2. Description of the Related Art Currently, there are thousands of types of tablets prescribed in hospitals and pharmacies, but the number of tablets actually used is limited to about 800 types. Conventionally, a tablet packaging machine has been used, which can store approximately 250 types of tablets per unit and can automatically pack tablets as prescribed by simply inputting desired prescription data with a controller such as a personal computer. I have. As disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. Sho 58-46962, for example, the structure of such a tablet packing machine is such that a medicine storage section containing a plurality of rectangular parallelepiped tablet cases is housed therein, and a funnel-shaped hopper is provided below. And a casing that houses the packaging machine section via a shutter and a shutter. In the medicine storage section, several parallelepiped tablet cases are stacked vertically according to the type of tablet. The tablet is driven by inputting the above signal, the tablet is picked out, introduced into the hopper via the falling path, and then discharged through the shutter to the packaging machine.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention According to the above structure, a plurality of cuboid tablet cases are vertically stacked in the medicine storage section, so that the height dimension of the medicine packaging machine is increased, and It was very difficult for short people to handle tablets, etc.

Further, the conventional hopper has a structure in which four surfaces are integrally formed in an inverted quadrangular pyramid shape by bending a sheet metal or the like, and is configured to collect a medicine at a central portion in both the front-rear direction and the left-right direction. Therefore, there are many restricting elements in the height direction of the hopper itself, and the height is higher than that in which the tablets are collected in one of the left, right, front, and rear directions, which hinders the suppression of the height of the medicine packaging machine. Had become. It does not use a conveyor to collect tablets in the center.

In view of the above, the present invention provides a medicine packaging machine in which a restricting element in a height direction of a hopper is reduced, and a conveyor for collecting tablets at a center below the hopper is provided, and a conveyor control device for the same.

[Means for Solving the Problems] A medicine packaging machine according to the present invention comprises a casing having a medicine storage section at an upper portion and a packaging machine section at a lower portion, and a vertical direction extending over substantially the entire height of the medicine storage section. A plurality of tablet cases which are formed in a slender shape and are arranged in the medicine storage section in a horizontal direction and in a plane, and a medicine discharged from each tablet case which is arranged close to the lower part of the tablet cases and is discharged from the front and rear of the casing. Alternatively, a hopper that collects at the center from either one of the left and right sides, and a pair of conveyors that are disposed below the hopper and collect the medicine for one package that falls from the hopper along the hopper at the center of the casing, An input mechanism for inputting a collected drug disposed below between a pair of conveyors into a packaging bag, and a drug removing operation / input mechanism for the tablet case And a control device for controlling the medicine input operation and drug collection operation of the conveyor,
The packaging bag into which the medicine has been put is sealed and packaged.

Further, the conveyor control device of the medicine packaging machine of the present invention has a plurality of tablet cases containing medicines, a hopper disposed below the case and collecting the medicines in the center in the front-rear direction,
A pair of left and right conveyors arranged below the hopper and collecting the medicine at the center in the left-right direction, and a control device for controlling the drive of the conveyor, the control device, the type of medicine indicated by the controller, The driving time of the conveyor is determined based on the distance to the center in the left-right direction of the tablet case storing the designated medicine.

Further, in this conveyor control device, when a plurality of kinds of medicines are instructed by the controller, a driving time set in advance for the tablet case corresponding to the medicine having the longest distance to the center in the left-right direction is selected. By doing so, the driving time of the conveyor is automatically set according to the instruction from the controller, and the usability is improved.

Action Since the hopper is configured to collect the medicine at the center from both sides in one of the front and rear directions and the left and right directions, the height of the hopper can be suppressed by reducing the inclination angle of the hopper itself. In addition, since a conveyor for collecting the medicine dropped from the hopper at the center of the casing along the hopper is disposed under the hopper, the height of the hopper and the conveyor together can be made smaller than that of the conventional hopper.

On the other hand, in controlling the driving of the conveyor, the controller drives the conveyor based on the type of medicine designated by the controller and the distance to the center in the left-right direction of the tablet case containing the designated medicine. By having decided the time, by instructing the drug in the controller,
The conveyor driving time is set automatically.

In addition, when the instruction from the controller is a plurality of medicines, the driving time set in advance for the tablet case corresponding to the medicine having the longest distance to the center in the left-right direction is selected, so that the conveyor is selected. Can transport a plurality of medicines to a predetermined position in one operation without stopping.

Embodiment An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is an external view of a medicine packaging machine, which comprises a controller 10 and a packaging machine 11. The controller 10 generates prescription data including the type of medicine, the number of drugs, and the number of days by a key operation of the key input unit 12 and transfers the data to the packaging machine 11, and the packaging machine 11 performs a packaging operation based on the transferred prescription data. .

FIG. 2 shows a schematic configuration of the packaging machine 11, in which 11A is a casing, in which a tablet case storage section 1 as a medicine storage section is formed at an upper portion, and a hopper 2 and A shutter 3 and a packaging mechanism 4 as an input mechanism are arranged. The tablet case storage unit 1 is divided into a plurality of planes by a grid-like partition plate, and stores a tablet case 5 elongated in the up-down direction independently in each section. A tablet case 5 is placed in the tablet case storage unit 1 according to the type of the medicine. The tablet case 5 is driven by input of a predetermined medicine discharge signal to take out the medicine and introduce the medicine into the hopper 2. It is configured. Here, a plurality of tablet cases 5 containing the same type of medicine are placed in the tablet case storage section 1 (for a layout example of the tablet cases 5, see the comparison table in FIG. 6).

The packaging mechanism 4 is a heat-sealable and pre-folded packaging sheet 6 (in FIG. 2, the right end is a folded portion that is folded in half, and the left end is conveyed to the heat sealing mechanism 9 in an unwelded state. ), A tension roller 8, a printer 30 for printing prescribed items such as prescription data and dosage time on the packaging sheet 6, and a continuous packaging by heat sealing the packaging sheet 6 in a T-shape. T to form a bag
It comprises a heat-seal mechanism 9 having a letter shape, a feed roller 10 for intermittently feeding a sheet-shaped sachet, and a conveyor 45 for sending the sheet-shaped sachet to a medicine package outlet.

Then, the feed roller 10 is driven intermittently to convey the packaging sheet 6, and when the intermittent operation is stopped, the heat sealing mechanism 9 causes the partitioning portion K of each packaging bag to be separated from the partitioning portion K on the opening side. The upper half L and the lower half M are heat-welded in a T-shape to form a sachet having an open upper half. Then, as described later, the medicine conveyed on the conveyors 36 and 37 falls into the shutter 3 from between the two conveyors 36 and 37. The shutter 3 has openings on the upper and lower surfaces, and the lower surface opening is closed by the bottom plate 3B. By the feeding operation of the feeding roller 10, the sachet whose lower portion is sealed by the heat sealing mechanism 9 corresponds to each time. Then, the paper opening device 40 opens the upper part of the sachet, and the shutter 3 advances forward on the bottom plate 3B toward the sachet. When the shutter 3 further advances forward of the bottom plate 3B, the medicine in the shutter 3 drops into the sachet because the lower opening is opened, and the medicine input operation to the sachet is completed. I do. The shutter 3
Moves backward and stops at a predetermined position. Thereafter, the opening of the upper half of the sachet is heat-sealed by the operation of the heat sealing mechanism 9 accompanying the operation for forming the next sachet, and the sachet containing the medicine is sealed.

FIG. 3 shows a control circuit according to the invention, and 13 is a controller 10
A control circuit unit 14 is a control device as a control circuit unit on the packaging machine 11 side, which is connected by a transmission line 17 via interfaces 15 and 16 for converting transmission data into serial data and receiving data in parallel. I have.

The control circuit unit 13 on the controller side includes a central processing unit 18 and a system memory in which a control procedure of the system is programmed.
19, a keyboard interface 20 for detecting the operation of the key input unit 12 and generating a key input signal, a CRT controller 21, and a buffer memory 23 for storing prescription data including the type of drug input, the number of drugs, and the number of days. It is composed of

On the other hand, the control circuit unit 14 on the side of the packaging machine 11
A system memory 25 in which a control procedure on the side of the packaging machine 11 is programmed, and a buffer memory 26 for storing prescription data including the drug type, the number of drugs, and the number of days transmitted from the control circuit unit 13 on the controller 10 side, A packaging machine controller 28 that controls the packaging operation of the packaging machine 11, a printer interface 29, and registers R1, R2, and R3.

In the above configuration, the control circuit unit 14 on the packaging machine performs the packaging control based on the prescription data transmitted from the control circuit unit 13 on the controller side, but the transfer mode between the control circuit units 13 and 14 is controlled by the control circuit. The process is started by the unit 14 transmitting a transfer request signal to the control circuit unit 13. At this time, the control circuit unit 14 periodically transmits the transfer request signal without performing the packaging control.

Hereinafter, the operation of the control circuit unit 13 on the controller side will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. The central processing unit 18 determines whether a transfer request signal N ₁ step, when the transfer request signal is not output, determines the presence or absence of the key input in N ₂ step. Key input unit 12 is operated and the drug name and dosage number of days for packing before each morning, noon and evening, sleep is a key input, the key input content in accordance with a predetermined format is N ₃ step The prescription data based on the prescription data is created and stored in the buffer memory 23. On the other hand N ₁ step determines when the transfer request signal from the control circuit section 14 detects that the is being sent, whether the prescription data shifts to N ₄ steps. When the key input for packaging have been made, the buffer memory 23 by the processing of the aforementioned N ₃ steps are formulated data store, control of the packaging machine side prescription data through transmission line 17 in N ₅ step Transfer to the circuit section 14. In N ₆ steps,
To clear the contents of the buffer memory 23 to return to the N ₁ step. Further, it is confirmed without prescription data at N ₄ step, returns to N ₁ steps.

The operation of the control circuit unit 14 of the packaging machine will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Outputs a transfer request signal by M ₁ step, it is determined whether the prescription data M ₂ steps. Here, when receiving the prescription data from the control circuit unit 13 of the controller side, stores the prescription data to the buffer memory 26 at M ₃ steps. The next M ₄ steps, the register R ₁ drug species from the prescription data, tablet number stored respectively in the register R2, in yet, M ₅ steps, conveyor hopper 36, 3
An operation signal (hereinafter, referred to as an ON signal) is output to 7, and the conveyor starts the medicine collecting operation. Then, in the M ₆ step, the contents of register R2 is equal to or a "0",
If not "0", and the drug removal signal is output at M ₇ step, one pack component drug removal operation is started. Then
In M ₈ step, and stored again register R2 by one subtracted from the stored agent number in the register R2, returning to M ₆ steps. Repeat this operation, the agent number of register R2 in M ₆ step becomes "0", the process proceeds to M ₉ steps.

The M ₉ step is for setting the conveyor downtime That timer time, by referring to the reference table shown in the flow chart and Figure 6 shows in Fig. 7, illustrating its operation behavior. However, the comparison table shows the position of the tablet case [the numbers from 1 to 240 in the table correspond to this position]
Depending on the distance to the position of the shutter 3, in order of distance to the shutter 3 is short, the timer reference time S _n 0, 1,
2, ……, n−1, n
The figure shows an example where there are 240 tablet cases (that is, n = 9).

The first M ₂₁ steps, or the value stored in the register R3 to record the timer reference time is set to "S = 0", will look timer reference time the drug species stored in the register R1 is the M ₂₂ step (i.e. S _n = any on whether the corresponding 0-9) searching, in M ₂₃ step, it is judged whether "S _n is greater than S", when the "S _n> S", in M ₂₄ step stores the "S = S _n" in the register R1, when "S _n ≦ S", the process proceeds to M ₂₅ step. The M ₂₅ step, one shifts the address of the register R1, the address of the register R1 at M ₂₆ step to ensure that they are not exceeded.
When the address in the M ₂₆ step is not over, was repeated a return sequence this step the following operations to M ₂₂ step, the address in M ₂₆ steps it is confirmed that the over, then in M ₂₇ step a timer time is set to "S × 100ms", the process proceeds to step M _10.

The M ₁₀ steps, is started timer period countdown set in M ₂₇ step, M ₁₁ to determine the end-non completion of the count Dan down in step, when the termination, M ₁₂
In the step, the sheet opening operation of the paper opening device 40, the forward / backward movement operation of the shutter 3, and the opening / closing operation of the lower surface opening are performed, and the medicine input operation to the sachet is performed. Next (hereinafter referred to as OFF signal) the stop signal of the conveyor 36, 37 in M ₁₃ step outputs the packaging operation of the packaging machine 11 becomes M ₁₄ step is performed, M ₁₅ days in step and M ₁₆ step In other words, the packaging operation of the medicine for one prescription is performed.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above in detail, according to the present invention, the medicine is collected at the center from either one of the front and rear or left and right sides by the hopper, and the collected medicine is collected at the center of the casing by a pair of conveyors. Since the hopper itself is collected, the height of the hopper itself can be reduced, and the height can be suppressed lower than that of a hopper that collects the medicine from the front, rear, left and right directions, and the tablet case can be moved in the horizontal direction. The height of the entire medicine packaging machine can be reduced by arranging the medicine packing machine in a plane.

In controlling the driving of the conveyor by the control device, the driving time of the conveyor is determined based on the type of medicine designated by the controller and the distance to the center in the left-right direction of the tablet case storing the designated medicine. Since the decision is made, the user can automatically set the driving time of the conveyor by instructing the medicine with the controller, and instruct the prescription contents as a controller for controlling the medicine packaging machine. It is possible to divert the conventional controller as it is.

Furthermore, even when the instruction content of the controller is a plurality of medicines, among the designated medicines, the drive time set in advance for the tablet case corresponding to the medicine having the longest distance to the center in the left-right direction is set. Because of the selection, the conveyor can transport a plurality of medicines to a predetermined position in one operation without stopping on the way, can perform a quick medicine collection operation, and Usability can be improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

Each figure shows an embodiment of the medicine packaging machine of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the medicine packaging machine according to the invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a tablet case storage section and a charging mechanism, and FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the controller, FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the packaging machine, FIG. 6 is a control table, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation of setting the driving time of the conveyor. . A: medicine packaging machine, 1: tablet case storage section (drug storage section), 2 ... hopper, 3 ... shutter (feeding mechanism), 4 ... packaging mechanism, 5 ... tablet case, 10 ...
... Controller, 11 ... Packing machine, 12 ... Key input section, 13 ... Controller side control circuit section, 14 ... Packaging machine side control circuit section (control device), 18,24 ... Central processing unit, 23, 26… buffer memory, 27, 31… file memory, R1, R2, R3… registers.

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A casing having an upper part and a packaging machine part at a lower part, and a casing which is formed so as to extend over substantially the entire height of the medicine storing part in a vertical direction, and is formed on the medicine storing part in a horizontal plane. A plurality of tablet cases, and a hopper that is disposed below and close to these tablet cases and collects the medicine discharged from each tablet case from the front and rear or one of the right and left sides of the casing. A pair of conveyors arranged below the hopper and collecting the medicine for one package dropped from the hopper at the center of the casing along the hopper, and a packaging bag arranged below the pair of conveyors to collect the collected medicine. Control mechanism for the operation of taking out the medicine of the tablet case, the operation of taking the medicine of the introduction mechanism, and the operation of collecting the medicine of the conveyor. And a that the control device, drug packaging machine, which comprises a sealed package the inserted packing bag of the drug. 2. A plurality of tablet cases accommodating medicines, a hopper arranged below the tablet case to collect medicines at the center in the front-rear direction, and a left and right arranged below the hoppers to collect medicines at the center in the left-right direction. The driving time of the conveyor is determined based on a pair of conveyors, a control device for controlling the driving of the conveyor, and a distance to the center in the left-right direction of the tablet case storing the designated medicine. Conveyor control device for medicine packaging machine. 3. When a plurality of kinds of medicines are designated by the controller, a preset drive time is selected for the tablet case corresponding to the medicine having the longest distance to the center in the left-right direction. The conveyor control device for a medicine packaging machine according to claim 2, wherein