TWI728683B - Lubricating device and mechanical arm with the lubricating device - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a lubricating device for a robotic arm. The robotic arm has a housing, a spline shaft and two nuts. The spline shaft passes through the housing, and two nuts are located in the housing and sleeved on the spline shaft at intervals, so that the spline shaft can be driven by the two nuts to move up and down or rotate along its own axis. The lubricating device of the present invention is arranged in the housing and located between the two nut caps, and has an oil-containing element and an oil-guiding element. The oil-guiding element contacts the oil-containing element and the spline shaft at the same time, so as to reduce the lubrication provided by the oil-containing element The oil is guided to the outer peripheral surface of the spline shaft to obtain the lubrication effect of the spline shaft, so that the effect of extending the service life and reducing the risk of failure can be achieved without affecting the terminal operating stroke of the spline shaft.

Description

Lubricating device and mechanical arm with the lubricating device

The present invention relates to a mechanical arm, and particularly refers to a lubricating device and a mechanical arm having the lubricating device.

At present, robotic arms have been widely used in the manufacturing and processing industry. On the one hand, it can reduce the reduction in product yield caused by the implementation of highly repetitive workflows. On the other hand, it can replace manual work under harsh environmental conditions. In this way, the health of the staff can be prevented from being harmed, and at the same time, good processing accuracy can be maintained. However, during use, if the lubrication is insufficient, it is easy to cause abnormal positioning of the robot arm, and may even increase the maintenance frequency and increase the maintenance cost.

The ball spline group disclosed in the Republic of China Announcement No. M583002 patent is mainly provided with oil storage grooves for accommodating lubricating oil and guide grooves for guiding lubricating oil to the ball group in the front and back end cap groups. This is enough. Lubricate the ball group with lubricating oil to achieve the effect of reducing friction. However, in the aforementioned patent case, the size of the end cover group needs to be increased to have enough space to accommodate the lubricating oil. As the size of the end cover group increases, it will inevitably affect the terminal operation stroke of the spline shaft.

The main purpose of the present invention is to provide a lubricating device for a robotic arm, which can improve the lubrication effect and reduce the risk of failure without affecting the terminal operating stroke.

In order to achieve the above-mentioned main purpose, the mechanical arm used in the lubricating device of the present invention includes a housing, a spline shaft and two nuts. The spline shaft passes through the housing from top to bottom; the two nuts are located in the housing and are sleeved on the spline shaft at intervals, so that the spline shaft can be driven by the two nuts to move along Its own axial displacement or rotation up and down. The lubricating device of the present invention is arranged in the casing and located between the two nuts, and has an oil-containing element for supplying lubricating oil and an oil-guiding element for guiding the lubricating oil, and the oil-guiding element is in contact with the oil at the same time The element and the spline shaft are used to provide a lubricating effect to the spline shaft.

It can be seen from the above that the installation position of the lubricating device of the present invention does not affect the terminal operating stroke of the spline shaft, and uses the lubrication effect provided by itself to reduce the risk of failure of the spline shaft and reduce subsequent maintenance costs.

Preferably, the lubricating device further includes a supporting plate and two bearing seats. The support plate has a first hole pierced by the spline shaft. The two bearing seats are arranged on the support plate and are assembled with each other in a horizontal direction, so that the two bearing seats surround the first hole. For the spline shaft, the oil-containing element and the oil guiding element are both arranged on one side of the two bearing seats facing the spline shaft. With the above technical features, the lubricating device provides a good and stable lubrication effect on the spline shaft. In addition, since the two bearing seats are assembled in the horizontal direction, the user does not need to disassemble the two bearing seats first when assembling or disassembling the two bearing seats. The nut has the effect of facilitating assembly and disassembly.

Preferably, the top edge of the oil guide element abuts against the two cover plates, the two cover plates are locked to the two bearing seats, and the bottom edge of the oil guide element contacts the oil-containing element. With the above features, the oil guiding element has good assembly stability.

Preferably, one of the two end faces of the bearing seat has a convex part, and the other two end faces of the bearing seat respectively have a concave part, and the two convex parts are detachably inserted into the two concave parts; or, each of the The two end surfaces of the bearing seat respectively have a convex portion and a concave portion, and the convex portion of one bearing seat is detachably inserted into the concave portion of the other bearing seat. With the above technical features, a good assembly positioning effect is maintained between the two bearing seats.

Preferably, one of the bearing seats has two opposite hooks on the outer peripheral surface, and the other has two opposite hook grooves on the outer circumferential surface of the bearing seat, so that one of the two hooks of the bearing seat hooks respectively In the two hook grooves of the other bearing seat; or, the outer peripheral surface of each bearing seat has a hook portion and a hook groove opposite to the hook portion, so that one of the hook portions of the bearing seat is hooked on the other One in the hook groove of the bearing seat. With the above technical features, a good assembly positioning effect is maintained between the two bearing seats.

Preferably, the support plate has two second holes, the bottom surface of each bearing seat has an elastic buckle portion, and the elastic buckle portion of each bearing seat is detachably buckled in one of the second holes of the support plate . With the above technical features, each bearing seat has the effect of facilitating assembly and disassembly, so as to facilitate the action of replenishing lubricating oil on the oil-containing element.

In addition, the present invention further provides a mechanical arm, which includes a housing, a spline shaft, two nuts, and a lubricating device. The spline shaft passes through the housing from top to bottom; two nuts are arranged in the housing and sleeved on the spline shaft at intervals, so that the spline shaft can be driven by the two nuts. Displace or rotate up and down along its own axis; the lubricating device is arranged in the housing and between the two nuts, and has an oil-containing element and an oil-conducting element, and the oil-conducting element contacts the oil-contained element and the spline The outer peripheral surface of the shaft is used to guide the lubricating oil provided by the oil-containing element to the spline shaft. Thereby, the installation position of the lubricating device of the present invention does not affect the terminal operation stroke of the spline shaft, and the lubrication effect provided by itself reduces the risk of failure of the spline shaft and reduces subsequent maintenance costs.

The detailed structure, characteristics, assembly or use of the lubricating device for the robotic arm provided by the present invention and the robotic arm with the lubricating device will be described in the detailed description of the subsequent embodiments. However, those with ordinary knowledge in the field of the present invention should be able to understand that these detailed descriptions and specific examples for implementing the present invention are only used to illustrate the present invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of the patent application of the present invention.

The applicant first explains here that throughout the specification, including the following embodiments and claims in the scope of the patent application, the nouns related to directionality are based on the directions in the drawings. Secondly, in the following embodiments and drawings, the same element numbers represent the same or similar elements or their structural features.

Please refer to FIGS. 1 and 2, which show the state of the lubricating device 18 of the present invention applied to the Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA). The aforementioned horizontal multi-joint robot arm 10 includes a base 11, A first arm 12, a second arm 13, a housing 14, a spline shaft 15 and two nuts 16, wherein the base 11 is fixedly arranged on the ground or a fixed plane; the first arm 12 is Its rear end is pivoted on the base 11 and can be driven to pivot by a first axis motor (not shown) provided in the base 11; the second arm 13 is pivoted on the first arm with its rear end The front end of 12 can be driven by a second shaft motor (not shown in the figure) provided in the housing 14 to pivot; the housing 14 is provided on the top surface of the second arm 13 for aligning the spline shaft 15 and the two nuts 16 provide a protective effect. In order to facilitate the display of the internal components of the housing 14, a part of the housing 14 is omitted in Figure 2; the spline shaft 15 passes through the housing 14 and the second from top to bottom. Arm 13, the top end of the spline shaft 15 protrudes from the housing 14, and the bottom end of the spline shaft 15 protrudes from the second arm 13; two nuts 16 are located in the housing 14 and sleeved on the spline at intervals Shaft 15, one of the inner wall of the nut 16 has a spiral groove (not shown in the figure) corresponding to the spline shaft 15, and the inner wall of the other nut 16 has a straight groove (not shown in the figure) corresponding to the spline shaft 15 When the two nuts 16 are driven by a power source (such as a motor), the spline shaft 15 can be driven by the two nuts 16 to move up and down or rotate along its own axis. Since the aforementioned horizontal multi-joint robot arm 10 is a conventional technology and is not the focus of this case, the detailed structure and operation principle thereof will not be repeated here. In addition, for ease of display, the base 11, the first arm 12, and the housing 14 are omitted in FIG. 2 and are described here first.

Please continue to refer to Figures 3 and 4, the lubricating device 18 of the first embodiment of the present invention is provided in the housing 14 and located between the two nuts 16, which includes a support plate 20, two bearing seats 30, two One oil-containing element 40, and one oil-guiding element 42.

The two ends of the supporting plate 20 are respectively locked to the second arm 13 by a fixing element (such as a bolt, not shown in the figure). The support plate 20 has a first hole 22 for the spline shaft 15 to pass through and two second holes 24 located on two sides of the first hole 22.

Each bearing seat 30 has an arc shape in appearance. The bottom surface of each bearing seat 30 has an elastic buckle portion 31, and each bearing seat 30 is detachably assembled in the second hole 24 of the support plate 20 by using the elastic buckle portion 31 (as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6). The two bearing seats 30 are assembled with each other along a horizontal direction. After the assembly is completed, the two bearing seats 30 surround the spline shaft 15 with the first hole 22 as the center. As shown in FIG. 4, in this embodiment, the two bearing seats 30 respectively have a receiving groove 32 facing the spline shaft 15, and each bearing seat 30 has a convex portion 35 and a convex portion 35 on the two sides of the receiving groove.槽部36。 Recess 36. In addition, the two supporting seats 30 further have a hook portion 33 and a hook groove 34 respectively, and the hook portion 33 and the hook groove 34 are located on two opposite sides of the first hole 22. As shown in FIG. 7, the hook portion 33 of one bearing seat 30 is hooked to the hook groove 34 of the other bearing seat 30, and the convex portion 35 of one bearing seat 30 is inserted into the concave portion 36 of the other bearing seat 30 Inside, the two bearing seats 30 are assembled and positioned with each other to increase structural stability.

The oil-containing element 40 is made of polymer materials to provide lubricating oil. As shown in FIGS. 4 and 6, the two oil-containing elements 40 are arc-shaped and are arranged in the pockets 32 of the two supporting seats 30 in a one-to-one manner.

The oil guiding element 42 is made of a material (such as wool felt) that can absorb lubricating oil. As shown in Fig. 6, the bottom edge of the oil guide element 42 is in contact with the two oil-containing elements 40 at the same time, and the top edge of the oil guide element 42 is pressed by two cover plates 50. Each cover plate 50 uses two screws 52. It is locked on the top surface of the bearing seat 30 so that the oil guiding element 42 is positioned between the two bearing seats 30 and uses its inner circumferential surface to contact the outer circumferential surface of the spline shaft 15 (as shown in FIG. 7) to The lubricating oil provided by the two oil-containing elements 40 is guided to the outer peripheral surface of the spline shaft 15 so that the spline shaft 15 can obtain a lubricating effect. In addition, as shown in FIG. 4, the oil guiding element 42 has a cutaway groove 44 and is presented in a C-shaped configuration. The cutaway groove 44 allows the oil guiding element 42 to be radially deformed to facilitate assembly and disassembly.

As shown in Figures 8 and 9, in the second embodiment of the present invention, the number of the bearing seat 30, the oil-containing element 40 and the cover plate 50 is not limited to two, and one of them can be omitted according to actual needs. In this case, In order to cooperate with a single bearing seat 30 and a single oil-containing element 40, the oil guiding element 42 is cut from the C-shape of the above embodiment and presented in an arc shape so as to be installed in the receiving groove 32. Such a unilateral configuration can also provide a lubricating effect on the spline shaft 15.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 10, the structure of the lubricating device 60 of the third embodiment of the present invention is substantially the same as that of the above-mentioned first embodiment, but the difference lies in the positioning of the two bearing seats 70 and 80. More specifically, as shown in FIG. 11, one of the supporting bases 70 has two hooks 72, the two hooks 72 are located on two opposite sides of the first hole 22, and the other supporting base 80 has two hook grooves 82, The two hook grooves 82 are also located on two opposite sides of the first hole 22; in addition, one of the bearing seats 70 has two convex portions 74, and the two convex portions 74 are located on two opposite sides of the first hole 22, and the other bearing seat 80 has two recesses 84, and the two recesses 84 are also located on two opposite sides of the first hole 22. Thereby, as shown in FIG. 12, the assembling and positioning method between the two bearing seats 70 and 80 is that on the one hand, the two hooks 72 of the bearing seat 70 are simultaneously hooked into the two hook grooves 82 of the bearing seat 80, and on the other hand, On the one hand, the two convex portions 74 of the bearing seat 70 are simultaneously inserted into the two concave portions 84 of the bearing seat 80. As for the structural relationship between the two bearing seats 70, 80 and other elements (such as the support plate 20, the oil-containing element 40, the oil-conducting element 42, and the cover plate 50), it is completely the same as the above-mentioned embodiment. In order to save space, it is not tolerated here. Go into details.

In summary, the installation positions of the lubricating devices 18 and 60 of the present invention will not affect the terminal operating stroke of the spline shaft 15, and the lubrication effect provided by the oil guide element 42 can effectively reduce the failure of the spline shaft 15 Risks and reduce subsequent maintenance costs.

"First Example" 10: Horizontal multi-joint robotic arm 11: Pedestal 12: First arm 13: second arm 14: shell 15: Spline shaft 16: nut 18: Lubrication device 20: Support plate 22: The first hole 24: second hole 30: bearing seat 31: Elastic buckle 32: Tolerance 33: Hook 34: hook groove 35: convex 36: recess 40: oil-containing components 42: oil guide element 44: ditch 50: cover 52: Screw "The third embodiment" 60: Lubrication device 70, 80: bearing seat 72: Hook 74: Convex 82: hook groove 84: recess

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a robot arm applying the lubricating device of the present invention. Fig. 2 is a partial perspective view of a robot arm applying the lubricating device of the present invention. Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the lubricating device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 4 is an exploded perspective view of the lubricating device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 5 is a partial exploded view of the bottom view of the lubricating device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 6 is a longitudinal sectional view of the lubricating device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 7 is a plan view of the lubricating device according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 8 is a perspective view of a lubricating device according to a second embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 9 is an exploded perspective view of a lubricating device according to a second embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 10 is a perspective view of a lubricating device according to a third embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 11 is a partial exploded perspective view of a lubricating device according to a third embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 12 is a plan view of a lubricating device according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

20: Support plate

22: The first hole

24: second hole

30: bearing seat

32: Tolerance

33: Hook

34: hook groove

35: convex

36: recess

40: oil-containing components

42: oil guide element

44: ditch

50: cover

52: Screw

Claims (8)

A lubricating device for a mechanical arm. The mechanical arm includes a housing, a spline shaft and two nuts. The spline shaft passes through the housing, and the two nuts are located in the housing and sleeved at intervals The spline shaft is arranged on the spline shaft so that the spline shaft can be driven by the two nut caps to move or rotate along its own axis. The lubricating device is arranged in the housing and between the two nut caps, and has a An oil-containing element, an oil-containing element, a support plate and two bearing seats, the oil-conducting element contacts the oil-containing element and the outer peripheral surface of the spline shaft, and is used to guide the lubricating oil provided by the oil-contained element to the spline Shaft, the support plate has a first hole pierced by the spline shaft, the two bearing seats are arranged on the support plate and are assembled with each other along a horizontal direction, so that the two bearing seats are centered on the first hole Around the spline shaft, the oil-containing element and the oil guiding element are both arranged on one side of the two bearing seats facing the spline shaft. The lubrication device for a robot arm according to claim 1, wherein the top edge of the oil guide element abuts against two cover plates, and the two cover plates are respectively provided on the top surfaces of the two bearing seats, and the oil guide element The bottom edge contacts the oil-containing element. The lubricating device for a robotic arm according to claim 1, wherein one of the bearing bases has two convex portions, and the two convex portions are located on two opposite sides of the first hole, and the other is the bearing base has two concave portions, and the two convex portions are located on two opposite sides of the first hole. The concave portions are located on two opposite sides of the first hole, and the two convex portions of one bearing seat are detachably inserted into the two concave portions of the other bearing seat. The lubricating device for a robot arm according to claim 1, wherein each of the bearing seats has a convex portion and a concave portion, and the convex portion and the concave portion are located at the two phases of the first hole On the opposite side, one of the convex portions of the bearing seat is detachably inserted into the other concave portion of the bearing seat. The lubricating device for a robotic arm as described in claim 1, wherein one of the supporting bases has two hooks, and the two hooks are located on two opposite sides of the first hole, and the other is the supporting base with two hook grooves, two The hook grooves are located on two opposite sides of the first hole, and the two hook portions of one of the supporting bases are detachably hooked in the two hook grooves of the other supporting base. The lubricating device for a robot arm according to claim 1, wherein each of the bearing seats has a hook portion and a hook groove, the hook portion and the hook groove are located on two opposite sides of the first hole, and one of the The hook part of the bearing seat is detachably hooked into another hook groove of the bearing seat. The lubricating device for a robot arm according to claim 1, wherein the support plate has two second holes, the bottom surface of each bearing seat has an elastic buckle, and the elastic buckle of each bearing seat is detachably buckled It is arranged in one of the second holes of the supporting plate. A mechanical arm includes: a shell; a spline shaft passing through the shell; two nuts located in the shell and sleeved on the spline shaft at intervals, so that the spline shaft can receive two The nut is driven to move or rotate along its own axis; and a lubricating device is arranged in the housing and located between the two nuts, and has an oil-containing element, an oil-guiding element, a supporting plate and two Bearing seat, the oil guide element contacts the oil-containing element and the outer peripheral surface of the spline shaft for the oil-containing element to provide The lubricating oil is guided to the spline shaft, the support plate has a first hole pierced by the spline shaft, the two bearing seats are arranged on the support plate and are assembled with each other along a horizontal direction, so that the two bearing The seat surrounds the spline shaft with the first hole as the center, and the oil-containing element and the oil guiding element are both arranged on one side of the two bearing seats facing the spline shaft.

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