JPH113623A - Wire harness assembly tool - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a wire harness assembly tool capable of temporarily holding electric wires during the assembly of a wire harness and easily releasing a wire harness completely assembled. SOLUTION: A wire harness assembly tool comprises an electric-wire holder part 11, which has prongs 12 and 13 and a closure part 17. One prong 12 is made rigid, while the other 13 and the closure part 17 are both made relatively so flexible as to permit electric wires to be easily inserted in the holder part 11 and a wire harness completely assembled to be easily removed therefrom. Alternatively, the assembly tool may have two such rigid prongs 12.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a wire harness assembling tool, and more particularly to a wire receiving portion for temporarily holding wires of a wire harness during manufacture of the wire harness.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A wire harness consists of a number of wires having different lengths and thicknesses adjusted to connect to a plurality of relatively remote electrical components. Such a wire harness is used for an automobile as an example. A wire harness is usually composed of a trunk section through which a large number of electric wires pass and a large number of branch sections where the number of electric wires is relatively small. Automobile wire harnesses are very complex, consisting for example of 30 to 50 wires in the trunk and 20 to 30 wires in the branch, differing in length and thickness. There is something. Assembling the wire harness is relatively time-consuming. The wires are placed one by one on the assembly board, and when this is completed, the individual wires are bound by tape. The wires are relatively resilient and the drawing board must be provided with retainers to temporarily hold the wires during wire harness manufacturing. Such a retainer must be able to quickly and easily hold individual wires at the same time and remove the finished wire harness. The inner diameter of the holder is preferably about the same as the diameter of the completed wire harness in order to firmly hold the bundle of held electric wires. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-61817 discloses a rigid wire receiving portion for holding two legs having end caps with elastic arms. The arms face each other to ensure that the opening of the wire receptacle is closed. The wire is received when the arm enters the wire receiving portion so as to temporarily hold the wire. In this assembling tool, when the completed wire harness is pulled out from the wire receiving portion, the cap may be separated from both legs of the wire receiving portion. Further, the arm bends when the wire harness is taken out, and tends to regulate the open portion of the wire receiving portion. This requires that the size of the wire receiver be very large to facilitate use. As described above, it is impossible to firmly tie the wires in the very large wire receiving portion, and the wire receiving portion cannot be placed close to a large space. A single arm embodiment is also disclosed here, but with the same deficiencies. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-17853 discloses an electric wire receiving portion having one rotating leg which is obliquely directed to a fixed leg and a leg fixed by a spring. In a normal state, the opening of the wire receiving portion is not completely closed, which may cause individual wires to come off. The completed wire harness is easily removed by the rotating legs, but the retainers are very complex and expensive, and removal is somewhat slower. JP 9-17252 is mounted on the pivot of a pillar,
Disclosed is a wire receiving portion having two legs which are obliquely oriented in a completely closed state by a spring. This wire receiving part is completely closed in a normal state, whereby the individual wires are securely held.

[0003]

The above structure, however, is somewhat complicated and costly. In addition, when several holders need to be installed close to each other, the wire receiving portion may have a wide side surface, which may limit the operation.

An object of the present invention is to provide a wire harness assembling tool that temporarily holds an electric wire during a wire harness assembling operation and solves a problem that occurs in a conventional structure.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, a very rigid first leg for holding an electric wire of a wire harness in a detachable state and regulating a space having an open portion between ends is provided. A wire receiving portion having a flexible second leg; and an opening closing portion extending from one leg to the other leg to securely close the opening, and the opening for passing an electric wire therethrough. The invention relates to a wire harness assembling tool having a closing portion adjusted to open the portion.

[0006] Such an assembly tool has an advantage that the open portion of the wire receiving portion is not restricted by the closing portion when the assembled wire harness is taken out because one leg is flexible. This allows the wire receiving portion to be mounted close to the wire harness, facilitating firm binding. Such an assembly tool would not be wider than the wire receiver body, thus allowing several wire receivers to be placed in close proximity if needed.

[0007] The obstruction is mounted on one leg and preferably has a flexible arm. In this structure, the electric wire is received in the electric wire receiving portion, and it is easy to take out the assembled wire harness. No external spring is required.

In the above embodiment, the closing portion is an elastic leaf spring, and may extend inclining toward the bottom of the wire receiving portion so as to facilitate passage of the wire.

Preferably, the obstruction is placed on a relatively flexible leg and is more flexible than this leg so as to minimize bending of the flexible leg when receiving wires.

This assembling tool closes the rigid third leg which regulates the second electric wire receiving portion and the second space, the space between the first leg and the second leg which are perpendicular to each other, and the open portion of both electric wire receiving portions. , May have an obstruction extending between the ends of the three legs.

Such a tripod electric wire receiving portion is very useful when a branch electric wire forms a branch of a wiring route guided from both directions along a trunk line. Since one leg of the wire receiving portion does not need to receive the individual wires branched from both sides, it becomes easy to firmly bind the wires near the branch point.

[0012] The legs of the assembly tool can be adjusted according to the size of the wire receiving portion. One example is joining by grooves and pegs. Such a structure can arbitrarily adjust the space size between the wire receiving portion legs, and can have versatility with respect to the number of wires of the wire harness to be assembled.

Another structure of the present invention will be described with reference to a preferred embodiment shown as an example in the accompanying drawings.

[0014]

1 and 2 show a first embodiment of the present invention. The wire receiving portion 11 has a rigid leg 12 and a flexible leg 13 and regulates a first space A for receiving a wire. The flexible leg has a rigid lower portion 14 and a flexible upper portion 15 secured with screws (not shown) or other suitable. The rigid leg 12 may be a round steel bar by way of example, and the lower part 14 may be a flat steel beam. Upper portion 15 may be a resin material such as nylon or polypropylene.

The bottoms of the legs are welded to each other and are fixed to the support 16. The screw connection between the column 16 and the wire receiving portion 11 allows the height and direction of the wire receiving portion to be adjusted, and the nuts allow each portion to be fixed at an appropriate position by a known method.

The flexible leaf spring 17 may be made of synthetic rubber by way of example, but extends from the upper part 15 to the rigid leg 12. As shown, the open end 17 of the leaf spring is cut into a recess 18 to fit the upper end of the leg 12.

As can be clearly understood from FIG. 2, the leaf spring reduces the space between the legs of the wire receiving portion in the direction of reduction, and at the bottom of the wire receiving portion in order to easily receive the individual wires 31 as described below. It is inclined toward. The leaf spring 17 is more flexible than the upper part 15. The upper part 15 has an inwardly bulging head 20 and a groove 23 for accommodating one end of the leaf spring 17. The leaf spring is fixed to the groove by a suitable method such as adhesion, for example. The head 20 is necessary to hold the leaf spring 17, and has the advantage of reducing the opening of the wire receiving portion 11, thereby helping to hold the wires inside. Due to the head 20 bulging inward, there is no protrusion to the outside or the outside of the wire receiving portion, so that a plurality of wire receiving portions can be placed close to each other and used.

The head 20 is, as can be seen, the wire receiving portion 1.
Round outer guide surface 22 to facilitate receiving wires from
Having.

Each of the electric wires 31 (FIG. 2) is bent by bending the leaf spring 17 as shown in FIG. The plurality of electric wires 32 are also properly received by bending the leaf spring below the head 20 (FIG. 4). The round outer guide surface 22 facilitates smooth entry of the wires into the wire receiver.

The assembled wire harness (wire bundle) 33 is received by the wire receiving portion 11 closely.
As shown in FIG. 5, the upper portion 15 can be easily taken out by bending outward. With the round guide surface 24 provided at the lower part of the head 20, the wire bundle 33 is protected and can be taken out without fear of damage. As clearly shown in FIG. 5, the head 20 regulates the wire receiving portion opening in the normal state,
Bend to take out the assembled wire harness.

FIG. 1 shows a branch wire 34 that curves outwardly behind the rigid leg 12. The rounded legs prevent damage to the wire coating. If the branch wires extend in both directions, the embodiment of FIG. 1 is not very useful because the legs 12 inevitably stick out between the wires. On the contrary, this makes tying near the joint very difficult. This problem is solved in the second embodiment of the present invention shown in FIGS.

In the second embodiment, the rigid arms 12a and 1a maintain a mutual space for restricting the second electric wire received in the space B.
2b. The structure is different from that described in the first embodiment.

The flexible leaf spring 17a is close to both open portions of the wire receiving portion, and the open portions are perpendicular to each other. As clearly shown in FIGS. 6 and 8, in the second embodiment, branch wires 37 and 38 extending from both directions along the trunk line 36 and the wire harness main body can be accommodated. The branch wires 37, 38 are shown far apart from each other for ease of illustration, but in practice
a, 12b and close to the joint. The completed wire harness can be easily taken out from the wire receiving portion as described above, and since the branch portion is located on the opposite side of the head portion 20, the movement is not further restricted.

As shown in FIG. 6, the support 16 has an electric wire receiving portion fixed to the substrate 39, and its height and direction are adjusted.

FIG. 7 shows a modification of the second embodiment. The flexible arm 13a is joined to the rigid arms 12a and 12b by a groove joint 41. The nut 42 can be loosened to allow a size of the wire receiver that is precisely adapted to the flexible leaf spring 17a that slides between the wire harness and the rigid legs 12a, 12b. Such a structure can arbitrarily adjust the size of the space between the wire receiving portion legs and can have versatility.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view before receiving one electric wire in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a front view during receiving one electric wire in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a front view of the first embodiment of the present invention during receiving a wire bundle;

FIG. 5 is a front view showing a state in which the wire harness assembled in the first embodiment of the invention is being taken out.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 shows a modification of the second embodiment.

FIG. 8 is a plan view of FIG. 6;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 Electric wire receiving part 12, 13 Leg 14 Lower part 15 Upper part 16 Prop 17 Flexible leaf spring 18 Depression 20 Head 22, 24 Guide surface 23 Groove 31 Electric wire 32, 33 Electric wire bundle 34 Branch electric wire

Claims (5)

[Claims] An electric wire receiving portion having a very rigid first leg and a relatively flexible second leg for securely holding an electric wire in a removable state and for regulating a space having an open portion between ends. ,
And a closure for the opening that extends from one leg to the other leg to securely close the opening, and a closure that is adjusted to open the opening for passing wires therethrough. Wire harness assembly tool. 2. The wire harness assembly tool according to claim 1, wherein said closure is flexible and is mounted on one of said legs. 3. The wire harness assembly tool according to claim 1, wherein the closing portion is mounted on the relatively flexible leg. 4. The tool of claim 3 wherein said closure is more flexible than said flexible leg. 5. A rigid third leg for regulating the second space and a space between both end portions together with the rigid first leg, a second space located at right angles to the first space, and the second space. The wire harness assembling tool according to claim 1, further comprising the closing portion extending between the two leg ends for closing the first space portion and the second space portion.