JPS5855862A - Tray feeder and recovery apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable accurate feeding and recovering of a tray with a simple construction by loading and unloading a microplate depending on own gravity of a pawl. CONSTITUTION:Trays are tiled up on a holding frame of a feeder and an operation button is depressed. A motor 32 starts to lift a push up plate 29. The plate 29 turns a pawl plate and reaches the top pushing it open released from the engagement with the trays. As with the rotation of a crank plate 33, the push up plate 29 starts lowering holding the trays, the pawl plate turns upward by its own gravity inserting the tip thereof between retaining projections of the trays on the lowest and subsequent stages and passes a pawl retained on the push up plate 29 separating from stacked matters. Then it retains the subsequent trays to hold the whole of stacked matters. The tray separated is shifted with a shifting mechanism onto a push up plate of a recovery apparatus with an additional operation and stacked thereon driven with a thrust device.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an apparatus that automatically supplies microplates for, for example, clinical tests, and automatically collects and stores microplates after mixing, diluting, etc. have been completed.

Conventionally, such devices are known to raise and lower the stacker itself and open claws provided at the bottom of the stacker to the left and right to drop the microplates one by one, or to collect the microplates by gripping them from the left and right sides. . However, this type of device not only has a complicated mechanism, but also has the drawback that, because the microplate is gripped by grips attached to the claws, there are occasional feeding or collection errors due to spring pressure, etc. there were.

In order to solve these problems, the present inventors (2) and others conducted a seed study and developed a device in which the stacker itself is fixed, a push-up member is added, and the microplate is attached and detached by moving the stacker up and down. It was discovered that this device solves all of the above-mentioned problems, and the present invention was completed based on this finding. A major feature of the present invention is that the method of retaining the microplate using the claws has been devised so that the microplate can be attached and detached using the weight of the claws.

That is, the present invention provides (1) a holding frame for a stack of trays, a pawl that is rotatably fixed to a shaft and locks and holds the lowest tray of the stack; a member that limits the lower end; a push-up member that pushes up the tray laminate from the bottom surface thereof and at the same time presses and rotates the mold to release the engagement between the claw and the tray; and a mechanism that moves the push-up member up and down. ,
A tray feeding device characterized by having a mechanism for transferring trays that have separated from a stack; (2) a mechanism for placing the transferred trays on a push-up member; and a mechanism for moving the push-up member up and down. A mechanism, a pawl that is pivotally fixed in a swingable manner and locks and holds the tray that has been pushed up by a push-up member, a member that restricts the swinging and rotating lower end of this claw, and a pawl that is formed by the push-up. The present invention relates to a tray recovery device characterized by having a frame for holding a stack of trays.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a front view of the lower part of the tray stack holding frame of a feeding device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a right side view thereof. In addition, the lower part of the claw holding plate 15a at the lower right of FIG.
The right half of the claw cover plate 27 is shown in cutaway form. In this embodiment, a rectangular cylinder made of aluminum is used as the holding frame 1 for the tray stack, with the front surface of the cylinder cut largely from top to bottom. A large window 2 is provided on the right side of the tray so that the stacked trays can be seen. This holding frame can be used as long as it can hold the tray stack and smoothly move the stack downward.Therefore, it is not limited to the shape of the embodiment, but can take various shapes that satisfy these conditions. I can do it.

This holding frame 1 is fixed to the main body of the apparatus by fixing fittings 3 and 4. Reference numeral 5 designates a fixing member on the main body side that engages with the fixing metal fitting 3, and a protrusion 7i at the tip of the holding frame side fixing metal fitting 3 is fitted into a groove 6 formed therein from the upper blade. On the other hand, the lower fixing metal fitting 4 is fixed by inserting its hole 8 into the 1↑-shaped protrusion lO fitted into the fixing member 9 on the main body side. This holding frame can be fixed with one touch. This holding frame can be fixed both vertically and horizontally, so that the same fixing fittings 3 and 4 are screwed onto the right side surface. 13 is a screw that fastens the fixture 3. ! 7.14 is a screw that fastens the fixture 4.

Four claw holding plates 15a and 15b are provided at the lower end of the holding frame l.

16a and 15b are screwed together, and a claw plate 17 is attached to the bottom of the screws.
．． 18 are identified so as to be able to swing together and move freely at beams 19a, 19b, 20a, and 20b. A perspective view of the nail plate is shown in FIG. This claw plate has a function of locking and holding the tray stack on its upper surface, and a tip portion 21.2 by a push-up plate 29, which will be described later.
2 is pushed up and rotated upward until it disengages from the tray, and as the push-up plate descends, it is required to rotate by its own moment and return to its original position. be.

As a result, the upper limit point of rotation must be a point from which the claw plate can easily return to its original direction, and the lower limit point must be a place where the claw plate can be fully held. Further, the width (1) of the claw plate should not be too wide in order to reduce the vertical movement of the push-up plate 29. In the embodiment, the range in which the nail plate can swing and rotate is between the horizontal position of the upper surface of the nail plate and an angle of approximately 300 degrees upward from the horizontal position, and the width of the nail plate is approximately 2 CrIL. The nail plate only needs to have a shape that satisfies these conditions, and it is not limited to a plate shape, but can take the shape of a god. Further, it is sufficient that the mounting position is at a constant distance from the holding frame, and for example, the claw holding plate may be mounted on the main body of the device.

In order to demonstrate the function of the nail plate to lock and hold the tray,
A member is required to limit the swinging and rotating lower end. In the device shown in the drawings, the levers 723a, 23b + 24a, 24b attached to the upper surface of the claw plate come into contact with the outer surface of the lower part of the holding frame 25, 26, thereby restricting the lower end of the swinging rotation of the claw plate. Incidentally, the upper limit of rotation is limited by the fact that the stock bin hits the back side of the claw cover 27°28.

As a member for pushing up the ton, in the device shown in the drawings, a -# cross-shaped plate 29 as shown in FIG. 4 is used. This push-up member has the function of pushing up the stacked material on the tray from the bottom force and the function of pushing and rotating the pawl to release the binding between the pawl and the tray. It must also have the function of ensuring that when the tip of the claw descends as the push-up member descends, the tip will be above the retaining protrusion 43 of the tray with which it was previously engaged. Therefore, the end portion 30° 3I of the push-up member is located near the engagement protrusion 43 of the tray, and the opening of the push-up member and the engagement protrusion of the tray after the engagement between the claw and the tray is released. The tip of the nail should not dig in. FIG. 5 shows some examples of the types of engagement protrusions on the tray and the corresponding push-up plates.

6th 1 is a front view of an example of a push-up device, and FIG. 7 is a right side view thereof. The right side of the push-up shaft 37 in FIG. 6 is shown in cross-section.

The crank plate 33 rotates due to the drive of the motor 32,
The power is further transmitted to the linkage 35 via the crankshaft 34, which causes the push-up shaft 37 to perform a piston movement through the par 36, thereby raising and lowering the push-up plate 29 attached to its tip. 38 is a roller, and 39 is a guide rod for the roller. A bar passage is bored in the sleeve 40 of the lifting shaft.

41 is a tray positioning projection. This is a limit switch that stops the 42Fi push-up plate at its lowest point. The apex of the push-up plate must be kept at a point where the push-up plate does not come off the claw plate.

The trays must have locking protrusions 4; 3 at least in the stacked state. This protrusion may be caused, for example, by the difference in length VC between the top and bottom surfaces of the tray, as shown in FIG. 5a.

The tray transfer mechanism is not particularly limited, and may be appropriately selected from known transfer mechanisms depending on the purpose.

In the tray recovery device, a notch 44 is formed in the center of the claw plate so that the push-up plate can pass through the claw, and the width of the push-up plate is slightly shorter both vertically and horizontally. ,
Other than three points, the highest point of the vertical movement of the push-up shaft in the push-up device is slightly higher so that the push-up plate can be pushed up to the top of the claw. May be the same. Another difference from the feeding device is that in the embodiment, the fixing fitting is on the left side and the window is on the right side.

Next, the operation of this apparatus will be explained. First, samples and other fillers are filled into each tray as necessary, and then the trays are stacked on the holding frame of the supply device.

Next, when the activation button of the push-up device' is pressed, the motor 2 is activated and the push-up plate 29 is raised, and the end 3 of the push-up plate is
0 and 31 hit the claw plates 17 and 18, and while rotating the claw plates, the tray is held from below and continues to rise while pushing up the entire tray stack, and when the claw plates and the tray are no longer held together, the tray is pushed up. The raised plate reaches its peak with the claw plates pushed open on both sides. Then, as the crank plate rotates, the push-up plate starts to descend while holding the tray, and the claw plate moves downward due to its own weight! As it moves, its tip enters between the locking protrusion of the lowest tray and the locking protrusion of the next tray, and as it continues to descend, the lowest tray is held by the push-up plate and the claw part is held by the push-up plate. As it passes and breaks away from the stack, the pawl plate locks the next tray and further holds the entire stack. On the other hand, the detached tray is transferred by a transfer mechanism, subjected to necessary operations such as filling and mixing, and then transferred to the push-up plate of the tray recovery device. Then, the push-up device operates to push up the tray on the push-up plate, and the upper surface of the tray traces the bottom surface of the already stacked trays, and it continues to rise while pushing up the entire stack of trays, until the edge of the tray Push the claw plate open and stop when the presser plate passes the claw part. The claw plate then rotates under its own weight and returns to its original position. Thereafter, when the push-up plate starts to descend, the tray is locked by the claw plate, and only the push-up plate returns to its original position.

In the above-mentioned operation, the supply device may be operated by manually turning on the switch, or a switch may be operated in conjunction with other processes.

The trays used in the apparatus of the present invention are not particularly limited as long as they are stacked and have locking protrusions on the sides, but relatively small and lightweight trays are preferable, for example for use in automatic analyzers. For example, trays used for measuring instruments in various medical or chemical fields, such as agar medium microplates, or trays for storing confectionery can be used. A perspective view of an example of the tray is shown in FIG.

The front view showing the outline is shown in Figure 9, and the right side view is shown in Figure 10.
As shown in the figure. In this device, the feeding device is arranged on the right side and the collecting device on the left side.

For the tray, use the microplate shown in Fig. 8, and stack the microplates on the holding frame 1 of the supply device, with, for example, +(+1) clean specimens placed in one row of holes on the left end and diluted solutions in the other rows of holes. Then, when the start button on the switch board 15 is pressed, the push-up device of the supply bag d is activated to release one micrograte, and the push-up plate holding the microplate is lowered to the center of the carrier plate 46. When passing through the hole Fall, this micro grade '4
-+Place it on the Yarya board. Next, the carrier plate moves to the left, and the swivel and yoke of the r/me 56 move and stop repeatedly according to the actions predetermined by the switch on the yd.During this period, the guireutor 47 operates to move the e, A series of sample solutions with different dilution ratios of the serum sample are prepared by repeating the operation of mixing the samples, maintaining a constant volume, and moving on to the next hole, and then reaching the left end. Then, the push-up device W4 of the same collection device
B is actuated, and the push-up plate passes through the hole from under the gear plate, holds the microplate and rises, and is stored in the holding frame 49 of the collection device and stacked. 5o and 5
Reference numeral 1 is a stop plate of the carrier plate, and 52 and 53 are streak rocket wheels of the endless chain 7 for moving the carrier plate. Further, 54 is a sensor for stopping the carrier plate at a predetermined position, and 55 is a tank for cleaning water for the Guilutor.

What is the structure of the device used in this investigation? +1] It is simple and has an excellent feature of reliably supplying and recovering trays, and has the advantage of being simple and inexpensive to manufacture.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a front view of the lower part of the tray stack holding frame of a feeding device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a right side view thereof. FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an example of a claw, and FIG. 4 is a plan view of an example of a push-up member. FIG. 5 shows various types of trays when the stack is stopped and when the push-up member is actuated to remove the trays. Moreover, FIG. 6 is a front view of the embodiment of the push-up device, and FIG. 7 is a right side view thereof. FIG. 8 is a perspective view of an example of the tray. FIG. 9 is a front view showing the outline of an automatic mixing and diluting device using the tray supply device and recovery device of the present invention, and FIG. 10 is a right side view (9). l...Holding frame, l7, l8...Claw plate, 23
a, 23b. 24 a r 24 b ... strike, gu-bin, 2
9... Push-up plate, : 32... Motor, 33... Crank plate, 35... Connecting rod, 37... Push-up shaft. Patent Applicant Fuji Organ Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Agent Patent Attorney 1) Hiroshi Naka Masa 19th 21st! I Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 5b Figure 50 Figure 6 Figure 7・41 Figure 8

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A holding frame for a stack of trays, a claw that is rotatably pivoted and locks and holds the lowest tray of the stack, and a member that limits the lower end of the claw that can swing and rotate. , a push-up member for pushing up the tray stack from the lower surface and at the same time pushing and rotating the claw to release the engagement between the claw and the tray; a mechanism for moving the push-up member up and down; and a mechanism for separating the stack from the stack. 1. A tray feeding device comprising: a mechanism for transporting trays that have been loaded. (2) A mechanism for placing the transferred tray on the push-up member, and a mechanism for moving the push-up member up and down; A tray recovery device comprising: a claw that locks and holds a tray; a member that limits the swinging and rotating lower end of the claw; and a frame that holds a stack of trays formed by pushing up. .