JPH02304510A - Take-up device for manufacture of optical fiber tape - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To take up both tapes being kept in a stable isolation state at an equal speed while preventing tape conductors from overlapping in the take-up operation at the time of starting the work by providing a continuous recessed groove and a projecting stripe, which should fit to each other along running lines on the surface of a pulley and that of a rubber belt. CONSTITUTION:A take-up device 4 consists of an iron pulley 8 and an endless rubber belt 11, and the outside peripheral surface of the pulley 8 is separated to right and left peripheral surfaces 10' and 10 by a recessed groove 9 formed in the center in the rotation direction, and a projecting stripe 12 to be fitted to the recessed groove 9 on the pulley 8 is formed along the center line in the running direction on the outside surface of the endless rubber belt 11, then, this outside surface is separated to right and left surfaces 13' and 13 corresponding to peripheral surfaces 10' and 10 of the pulley, and the take-up device is divided into two, namely, right and left systems. Thus, the trouble phenomenon that tapes overlap or take-up speeds of tapes are different because of a slight difference of thickness between tapes are practically resolved in the operation in the preceding stage of production start, and tape conductors are efficiently unified in parallel.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention integrates two or more optical fiber ribbons in parallel to continuously manufacture wider optical fiber ribbons. This invention relates to an improvement in a take-up device used for.

[Conventional technology]

An 8-fiber tape made by arranging two 4-fiber tapes containing multiple optical fibers, for example, four optical fibers and integrating them, is usually used as an 8-fiber tape, but it can be divided into two if necessary. It can also be used as a 4-core tape, and demand is increasing due to its wide range of uses.

Such parallel integration of optical fiber ribbons is carried out in a first-order method, for example.

Two tape core wires that have already been prepared and wound on separate rollers are fed out from the feeding device while being unwound from their respective rolls, and are not moved in parallel.
Pass through a V-curable monomer pot to adhere the monomer to the surface, and immediately irradiate it with an ultraviolet lamp to cure it, thereby forming a tape core wire coated with a UV-curable resin and integrated in parallel, This is taken up at a constant speed by a take-up device, and further passed through a dancer roller or the like and wound onto a take-up bobbin.

In this manufacturing method, a metal pulley with a smooth polished surface is usually used to take off the integrated tape core.
A pulling device that combines an iron pulley and an endless rubber belt that moves in the same direction so as to press against the surface of the pulley is widely used.

This pulling device has no problems in the steady state of manufacturing when optical fiber tape cores coated with UV curing resin and integrated in parallel are pulled, but when manufacturing such integrated fiber cores, There was a serious problem at the beginning. That is, at the start of manufacturing, first
Before starting the resin coating process, it is necessary to create in advance the tape running condition at the time of manufacture, in which two tape core wires are taken in parallel at a predetermined speed by a take-up device and wound up by a take-up bobbin. After establishing the running condition of the tape core during production, the resin coating operation begins. However, in such a pre-drawing operation, the two thin tape cores that are drawn in parallel often overlap on the surface of the iron pulley of the pulling device, causing the tape on the pulley side of the overlapped tape to slip or If the thickness of the two tapes is even slightly different.

Unavoidable situations arise in which the rubber belt is lifted by the thicker tape, causing the thinner tape to slip, making it impossible to pick up both tapes at the same speed. If such trouble occurs before the tape core wires integrated in parallel can be taken off in a steady state by the take-off device, stop the operation immediately and restart the previous operation from the beginning. Therefore, solving such a practical inconvenient phenomenon has been a serious issue.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Therefore, the object or technical problem of the present invention is to develop a take-up device that does not involve the above-mentioned inconveniences in the start-up operation of integrating at least two fiber tape cores in parallel.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an industrially desirable manufacturing method for parallel integrated fiber tape cores.

[Means to solve the problem]

The present inventors relate to a technique for overcoming the above technical problem,
As a result of repeated research focusing on the pulling device in particular, it was found that it is extremely effective to form at least one pair of grooves and ridges that fit together in each of the pulling devices consisting of a metal pulley and an endless rubber belt. I found it.

That is, one aspect of the present invention is a pulling device comprising a metal pulley and an endless rubber belt used in a device for coating at least two optical fiber tape cores with a synthetic resin and integrating them in parallel, the pulling device comprising a metal pulley and an endless rubber belt. A pulling device for manufacturing an optical fiber tape, comprising forming at least a pair of concave grooves and protrusions that fit together in an endless manner along a center line in the running direction on each of the outer surfaces of the rubber belt that are in contact with the rubber belt. I will provide a.

The pulling device of the present invention relates to an improvement of a device consisting of a metal pulley and an endless rubber belt that grips and pulls a plurality of tape core wires integrated in parallel or an integrated tape core wire, and the pulley surface and the rubber belt surface It is characterized by forming continuous grooves and protrusions that fit into each other along the respective running lines, preferably having a width larger than the width of the integrated tape core wire. be.

The fitting grooves and protrusions formed along the circumferential direction of the pulley surface and along the length direction of the belt constitute a separation band that separates the left and right sides of the pulling device. Since each tape core wire is pulled on the left and right sides, there is no risk of the tape core wires overlapping during the pull-off operation at the start of one work.
Both tapes, held in stable isolation, can be withdrawn at equal speed.

In addition, in a normal manufacturing state where the tape fibers integrated in parallel are taken off, this take-off device may take off the tape using either the left side or the right side of the pulley and belt, or use the recessed groove. However, for this purpose, the width of the groove is formed to be slightly larger than the width of the integrated tape.

Further, the fitting grooves and protrusions to be formed correspondingly may be formed by forming the grooves on the metal pulley and forming the protrusions on the endless rubber belt, or vice versa. A rectangular or trapezoidal shape is practical. Further, the height and depth of the protrusions and grooves may be substantially the same, but if the height of the protrusions is slightly smaller than the depth of the grooves, for example, Even if the thicknesses are different, there is an advantage that there is virtually no risk of the thinner tape slipping due to deformation of the grooves or the like in the rubber belt.

Next, the take-up device of the present invention will be explained in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic layout diagram of each member of the device for explaining the integration of optical fiber ribbons using the pulling device of the present invention. Moreover, FIG. 2 is a schematic partially enlarged side view of a holding part of a take-off device according to an example of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a schematic enlarged sectional view of optical fiber tape cores integrated in parallel.

In the figure, two optical fiber ribbons 1 sent out from a sending device (not shown) are placed in parallel in a pot 2 containing a synthetic resin monomer, for example, an ultraviolet curable monomer. The tape core wires are immersed and passed through the ultraviolet lamp irradiation device 3, where they are unified in a parallel manner by curing the monomers. It passes through a dancer roller 5 and a guide roller 6 and is wound up on a winding bobbin 7.

The pulling device 4 is composed of an iron pulley 8 and an endless rubber belt 11, and the pulley 8 has a groove 9 formed in the center in the rotation direction on the outer circumferential surface of the pulley 8.
The endless rubber belt 11 has a pulley 8 on its outer surface along the center line in its running direction.
A protrusion 12 is formed to fit into the groove 9 on the outer peripheral surface of the pulley, thereby forming a groove 9 on the outer peripheral surface of the pulley.
The recessed groove 9 and the protruding strip 11 divide the take-up device into two series, left and right. The protruding height of the protruding strip 12 is normally slightly smaller than the depth of the groove 9 of the pulley 8, and preferably smaller than the thickness of the tape core wire.

In addition, FIG. 3 shows a four-core tape fiber T fabrication 2 including four parallel optical fibers F coated with UV resin 14.
The book schematically shows eight optical fiber ribbons T2 which are further coated with UV resin 15 and integrated in parallel.

[Effect]

The take-off device of the present invention has the disadvantage that during the pre-production operation in which multiple tape core wires are taken in parallel, the take-up speed of each tape differs due to overlapping tapes or slight differences in tape thickness. This phenomenon is essentially eliminated, and tape core wires can be efficiently integrated in parallel.

[Examples] Example 1 A tape core in which two tape cores were integrated in parallel was manufactured using the manufacturing apparatus shown in FIG. 1.

The tape core wire used in the experiment was a 4-core tape core wire (approximately 0.4 m thick, 1 m wide, 1 m wide), which was made by arranging four optical fibers with a diameter of about 0.3 m in a row and coating them with UV resin. .

On the other hand, in the pulling device of the manufacturing equipment, the iron pulley has a diameter of 320+mwr and a width of 20a+m, the groove in the center has a width of 3.0mm and a depth of 1.0+u+, and the rubber belt has a width of 19m+m. The width of the protrusion in the center is 2.
8mm.

The protrusion height is 0.8 mm.

When this was used to integrate the two 4-fiber tape core wires in parallel, no trouble occurred at the start of the operation, and the double tape core wire could be manufactured extremely efficiently. The obtained 8-fiber tape core wire T2 had a thickness of 0.41 m and a width of 2.3 mm.

On the other hand, when a conventional take-off device is used, it is necessary to restart the operation once every 10 times.

In this way, in the actual operation of the conventional collection device,
It is easily understood that, while disadvantages have often occurred, the withdrawal device of the present invention has virtually no such disadvantages, and its superior effects are extremely remarkable.

In the above embodiment, an example of a take-to-manufacture in which two tape core wires are coated at once is described, but even when three or more tape core wires are integrated in parallel, a take-to-manufacturer with a corresponding combination of concave grooves and protrusions can be used. Good results were obtained using the device without the need for rework.

〔Effect of the invention〕

By using the take-off device of the present invention, the inconveniences experienced in the conventional method at the start of production can be completely eliminated, and a desired number of sub-strands of tape cores can be integrated in parallel to produce wide tape cores efficiently and industrially. It can be manufactured advantageously.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic layout diagram of each member of an optical fiber ribbon manufacturing apparatus, and FIG. 2 is a schematic partially enlarged side view of a holding part of a take-off apparatus according to an example of the present invention. Further, FIG. 3 is a schematic enlarged sectional view of an eight-core optical fiber ribbon that is integrated in parallel. Codes in the figure: 1... Optical fiber tape core 2... Ultraviolet curable monomer storage pot 3... Ultraviolet lamp irradiation device 4... Pulling device 5... Dancer roller 6... Guide Roller 7... Winding bobbin 8... Iron pulley 9... Concave groove 11... Endless rubber belt I2... Convex strips 14, 15... UV curing resin I? ...Optical fiber 1゛, ...4-core tape core wire'1°2...8-core tape core wire

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A pulling device consisting of a metal pulley and an endless rubber belt used in a device for coating at least two optical fiber tape cores with a synthetic resin and integrating them in parallel, the outer peripheral surface of the metal pulley and the above-mentioned rubber belt in contact with the same. At least one pair of recessed grooves and protrusions that are fitted together are formed in an endless manner along a center line in a running direction on each outer surface of the optical fiber tape.