JPH11326337A - Label reading apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To speedily and surely read labels when the labels of tubes such as test tubes, etc., are optically read. SOLUTION: A base unit 10 is provided with a lift mechanism for moving a movable unit 12 up, down. A tube is chucked by a manipulator 24 and then the movable unit 12 is pulled upward. When a nut press in member 16 butts with a slide nut 42, a spring 44 is compressed in accordance with the rise of the movable unit 12 and, and a lead screw 32 is rotated in accordance with the fall of the slide nut 42. As a result, the rotation is transmitted to the manipulator 24 via a belt 38 or the like. Since the tube is rotated simultaneously when the tube is raised by the manipulator 24, a label reader 18 can surely read contents of a label of the tube at whichever position the label is attached.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a label reader, and more particularly to an apparatus for optically reading a label attached to a tube such as a test tube.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a dispensing apparatus or the like, a plurality of tubes (for example, test tubes) are held upright by a rack, and the tubes are transported in rack units. In recent dispensers, a label such as a barcode label is attached to each tube in order to manage the sample (liquid sample) contained in the tube.

[0003] In a state where the tube is held in the rack, the label attached to the side surface of the tube may be readable as it is through a slit or the like formed in the rack, but the tube is not pulled out upward. May not be read. For example, a case where a plurality of tube rows are arranged or a case where a label is concealed by a rack.

[0004] Therefore, in the conventional dispensing apparatus, there is provided a transport device for pulling out a tube from a rack and transporting the same, and a label reader for reading a label attached to the tube transported by the transport device. Conventionally, since a large label reader was used, it was arranged on a table of a dispensing apparatus, and the above-mentioned transport apparatus repeatedly transported a tube between a rack and a label reader.

[0005]

Therefore, the tube transfer time cannot be ignored, and as a result, the dispensing efficiency has been reduced. That is, in the related art, label reading cannot be performed quickly, and the number of readings per unit time cannot be increased.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a label reading apparatus which can read a label quickly while pulling up a tube.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a label reading apparatus capable of accurately reading the contents of a label regardless of the position at which the label is formed.

[0008]

To achieve the above object, the present invention provides a movable unit having a manipulator for holding a tube, a base unit having an elevating mechanism for elevating and lowering the movable unit, And a label reader optically reading the contents of a label provided on a tube pulled up with the movable unit, and a rotating mechanism for rotating the manipulator when the movable unit is raised.

According to the above configuration, the tube is pulled up by the movable unit, and at that time, the tube is driven to rotate by the rotating mechanism. Therefore, when reading the label on the tube, the tube is rotated, so that the contents can be read regardless of the angle position of the label on the tube.

[0010] In a preferred aspect of the present invention, the rotating mechanism is mounted on the movable unit, and the rotating mechanism rotates the manipulator using a lifting force of the movable unit by the lifting mechanism.

According to the above construction, the rotation of the tube is performed by using the ascending drive force of the movable unit, so that there is no need to provide a separate drive unit, so that downsizing and cost reduction can be achieved and interlocking can be achieved. It can be done reliably.

In a preferred aspect of the present invention, the rotation mechanism includes a lead screw rotatably provided in a vertical direction, a rotation transmission mechanism for transmitting rotation of the lead screw to rotation of the manipulator, , And only the vertical movement is allowed and the rotational movement is restricted, and the slide nut that rotates the lead screw forward and reverse by the vertical movement, and the slide nut according to the relative movement of the movable unit with respect to the base unit. And a nut urging means for raising and lowering.

In a preferred aspect of the present invention, the nut urging means is provided on the base unit, and presses the slide nut downward when the movable unit is raised. A spring for urging upward.

In a preferred aspect of the present invention, the nut pressing member is arranged at a height at which the slide nut starts to be pressed when the movable unit reaches a predetermined height, and the tube rises to a predetermined height. Later, the tube is rotated.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a preferred embodiment of a label reading apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the configuration. This label reading device is a device mounted on the dispensing device in the present embodiment.

In FIG. 1, the label reading apparatus is roughly composed of a base unit 10 and a movable unit 12. The base unit 10 is supported by a horizontal bar 14 laid over the table of the dispensing device. The horizontal bar 14 is freely movable in the horizontal direction.
The base unit 10 can move along the horizontal bar 14. The base unit 10 includes a movable unit 12
Has a movable unit elevating mechanism for elevating, but is not shown. Therefore, the movable unit 12
By the action of the lifting mechanism and the horizontal bar 14, it is possible to freely move in three-dimensional directions.

The movable unit 12 is constituted by a member surrounded by a chain line in FIG. Specifically, the movable unit 12 includes a motor 20, an opening / closing mechanism 22, a manipulator 24, and a rotation mechanism 26. The motor 20 is a means for generating a driving force for opening and closing the manipulator 24. The rotating force generated by the motor 20 is converted by the opening and closing mechanism 22 into an opening and closing motion of the manipulator 24. The manipulator 24 is a mechanism for picking up a tube such as a test tube as described later.

Next, the rotation mechanism 26 will be described in detail. The rotating mechanism 26 is a mechanism for rotating the manipulator 24 by using the ascending drive force when the movable unit 12 moves up. Specifically, the frame 30 is fixedly provided to the movable unit 12 together with the opening / closing mechanism 22. Upper plate 30A and lower plate 30 of frame 30
B and a lead screw 32 is provided rotatably. Incidentally, the upper plate 30A and the lower plate 30B
A well-known rotation support mechanism such as a bearing is provided between the motor and the lead screw 32, but is not shown.

A spiral groove is formed in the lead screw 32, and a slide nut 42 is engaged with the lead screw 32. This slide nut 42
Will be described later.

A pulley 34 is connected to a lower end of the lead screw 32, and a belt 3 is connected to the pulley 34.
8 are wound. The belt 38 is wound around a pulley 36 connected to the shaft 24A of the manipulator 24. Therefore, when the lead screw 32 rotates, the pulley 34, the belt 38, and the pulley 36
Manipulator 24 by the rotation transmission mechanism composed of
The rotation is transmitted to the motor. That is, the manipulator 2
4 is driven to rotate.

In this example, a member 40 is provided at the upper end of the lead screw 32 to restrict the lead screw 32 from falling downward. However, the holding of the lead screw 32 may be performed by another method. For example, a flanged bearing may be provided on the upper plate 30A and the lower plate 30B, and the shoulder of the lead screw 32 may be sandwiched therebetween. The slide nut 42 has a groove 42A formed therein.
Is inserted with a regulating pole 46. The restriction pole 46 is fixedly supported by the upper plate 30A and the lower plate 30B.

Therefore, the groove 4
By the engagement of 2A, the rotational movement of the slide nut 42 is restricted. The groove 42A may be a through hole or a U-shaped groove, for example. A spring 44 is interposed between the slide nut 42 and the lower plate 30B. The spring 44 is connected to the lower plate 30.
It functions as a means for always urging the slide nut 42 upward with respect to B.

In a state where the movable unit 12 is pulled down, the tube is grasped by the manipulator 24, and in this state, the movable unit 12 is pulled up by the action of the lifting mechanism. Then, during the ascent, the nut pushing member 16 fixedly arranged on the base unit 10 comes into contact with the slide nut 42. When the movable unit 12 further rises, the slide nut 42 is pushed downward by the nut pushing member 16, and as a result, the spring 44 is compressed. At the same time, the downward movement of the slide nut 42 causes the lead screw 32 to rotate, thereby causing the manipulator 24 to rotate.
Is driven to rotate. That is, the tube gripped by the manipulator 24 rotates.

The nut pushing member 16 has a U-shaped groove 17 formed therein, and the U-shaped groove 17 allows the lead screw 32 to be formed.
Collision of the upper end of the is avoided. That is, the nut pushing member 16 has a form in contact with only the upper surface of the slide nut 42.

When the movable unit 12 is pulled down, the spring 44 extends in accordance with the descending distance,
As a result, the slide nut 42 is also lifted upward.
At the same time, the lead screw 32 rotates, and at the same time, the manipulator 24 also rotates.

When the movable unit 12 is pulled down to a certain height, the slide nut 4 is moved from the nut pushing member 16.
2 leaves. Thereafter, the manipulator 24 does not rotate. That is, when pulling up and pulling down a tube, no rotational force is applied to the tube at a certain height from the rack where the tube is held, and the tube starts to rotate from a point when the height exceeds a certain height. become.

In this embodiment, the base unit 1
0 is provided with a label reader 18. The label reader 18 is a mechanism for optically reading a label such as a barcode label attached to a tube. As described above, when the tube is lifted upward, the tube rotates, and this rotation causes the label reader 18 to be attached to the tube regardless of the orientation of the label.
Thus, the contents of the label can be reliably read. This will be described below with reference to FIG.

FIG. 2 shows a process in which the tube 100 is gripped by the manipulator 24 and the movable unit 12 is further pulled up. The label reader 18 has a built-in CCD in which elements are aligned in the vertical direction, and the information of the label 102 is repeatedly read by the CCD. At this time, since the tube 100 rotates, the content of the label 102 can be reliably read regardless of the orientation of the label 102 on the side surface of the tube 100. Incidentally, according to such rotation, there is also an advantage that the exposed label portion can be read even when the label 102 is partially hidden by the manipulator 24, for example.

According to the above embodiment, the base unit 1
Since the manipulator 24 can be rotated by using the driving force of the movable unit elevating mechanism provided in 0, there is no need to prepare a separate driving source for rotating the manipulator 24. Therefore, there is an advantage that the movable unit 12 can be reduced in weight and size.

Incidentally, when the movable unit 12 is lowered, the rotation of the manipulator 24 may be controlled to be stopped. In this case, for example, the timing belt 3
A clutch or the like may be provided in the rotation transmission mechanism including the rotation control unit 4 so that the rotation is not transmitted when the movable unit is lowered.

The height of the rotation start and the end of the rotation can be set by the positional relationship between the slide nut 42 and the nut pushing member 16, and specifically, by setting the height of the nut pushing member 16 as desired, Can be set as the rotation start position and the rotation end position. In the present embodiment, since the rotation of the manipulator 24 is stopped near the rack, the manipulator 2 is unnecessarily used when grasping the tube and releasing the tube.
4 can be prevented from rotating.

[0033]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The label can be read quickly and accurately while raising the tube.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a preferred embodiment of a label reading device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation of the device.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference Signs List 10 base unit, 12 movable unit, 14 horizontal bar, 16 nut pushing member, 18 label reader, 20 motor, 22 opening / closing mechanism, 24 manipulator, 26 rotating mechanism, 30 frame, 32 lead screw, 42 slide nut, 44 spring.

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A movable unit having a manipulator for grasping a tube, a base unit having an elevating mechanism for elevating and lowering the movable unit, and a label provided on the tube arranged on the base unit and lifted up together with the movable unit A label reader, comprising: a label reader that optically reads the contents of the above; and a rotation mechanism that rotates the manipulator when the movable unit is raised. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the rotating mechanism is mounted on the movable unit, and the rotating mechanism rotates the manipulator using a lifting force of the movable unit by the lifting mechanism. Label reader. 3. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the rotation mechanism includes: a lead screw rotatably provided in a vertical direction; a rotation transmission mechanism that transmits rotation of the lead screw to rotation of the manipulator; A slide nut that engages with the lead screw, restricts only vertical movement and restricts rotational movement, and rotates the lead screw forward and reverse by vertical movement, and the slide according to the relative movement of the movable unit with respect to the base unit. A label reading device, comprising: nut biasing means for raising and lowering a nut. 4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the nut urging means is provided on the base unit, and presses the slide nut downward when the movable unit is lifted. A label reader comprising: a spring for urging the spring upward. 5. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the nut pressing member is arranged at a height at which the slide nut starts to be pressed when the movable unit reaches a predetermined height, and the tube is moved to a predetermined height. A label reader wherein the tube is rotated after being raised.