Description:The present invention provides an Auto Indexing Ginning Roll Groover(AIGRG) for cutting of precise and perfect equidistant spiral grooves of desired depth and width on chrome leather rolls of any make, model, size and capacity that leads to increased lint productivity, production of superior quality fibres with reduced energy consumption, maintenance charges, etc. This invention would provide solution to traditional manual roll grooving that reduces lint productivity, fibre quality parameters and causes drudgery to operators. The invention would also save operators from inhaling toxic fumes that are produced during manual grooving operations.

The following detailed description of the invention is of the best currently contemplated modes of carrying out exemplary embodiment's of the invention. The description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, but is made merely for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention, since the scope of the invention is best defined by the appended claims.

The pitch or distance between two grooves that need to be cut varies with roll diameter. The distance between two grooves or pitch of the grooves is reduced with the wearing of the leather roller. Reduction of roll diameter is a practical field problem. The previous machines developed for groove cutting on DR gins lacked the mechanism/system to adjust the pitch of the grooves in accordance with the actual roll diameter. These machines used indexing mechanism for selection of pitch of grooves, which is variable in case of DR gin roller because of continuous wearing of rollers resulting in improper/non-uniform cutting of grooves. Hence, such roll grooving machines failed to perform under field conditions and could not be adopted by the stakeholders. In order to address this practical difficulty, a servo motor is used for driving and controlling the rotational motion of the chrome leather roller.

Referring to Fig. 1, in this mechanism, an encoder 8, which is coupled with Ball screw 10, is used to automatically synchronize the rotational motion of the Ball screw 10 and chrome leather roller 7 based on its gear ratio. Initially, actual number of required grooves, are to be fed into the HMI screen. Based on this information, the servo automatically computes the amount of rotational angle by which the roll is to be rotated for obtaining the desired pitch or distance between two consecutive grooves. The encoder tracks the rotational angle of the Ball screw during grooving operation. The rotation of the leather roll is automatically stopped immediately after its rotational angle matches to the computed value. The meticulous computation of rotational angle and stopping of the leather roller ensures the precise distance/pitch between two consecutive grooves over the entire periphery of leather roll. The rotational motion of the leather roller is obtained by means of the power received from a gear box 2 coupled with a servo motor 1. A metallic cutter 6 is tightly mounted over shaft of another electric motor 4. The electric motor and cutter assembly moves over a transverse traveling track 9 through a Ball screw, which is driven by another Geared motor 11. Additional mechanical safety has been considered by incorporating nylon Stopper 12 on both the end & operations safety has been duly taken care by putting limit switches 13 on both the ends of travelling path of roll cutter assembly 15. The use of ball screw ensures precised and quick movement of the Roll cutter assembly. During the roll cutting operation, lots of forces are generated. Hence, the leather roll need to be held rigidly and tightly to avoid any vibration or jerk during proper grooving operations. The previous roll grooving machines adopted a heavy three jaw chuck holding mechanism as head end and a tail-stock used in lathe machines for mounting the chrome leather roller. This mechanism requires a lot of time in aligning the roll. In order to address this practical difficulty, a light weighted three jaw true chuck is used for firm holding and quick aligning of the leather roller over the AIGRG. The head end of the chrome leather roller is mounted on an three jaw true chuck 3, in which one pinion need to be tighten and loosen with the help of Allen key for the engagement and disengagement respectively of the leather roll. Whereas a tail end assembly 5 is specially for aligning and holding other end of the leather roller. In the tail end assembly, two friction-less rollers are strategically fitted over a pair of metallic plates. The tail end assembly can be moved to and fro to adjust the length of the chrome leather roller to be grooved.

Referring to Fig. 2, A height adjustment mechanism 15 is developed to raise up or lower down the electric motor and cutter assembly according to the actual roll diameter to be grooved. The electric motor and cutter assembly can also be rotated on horizontal plane and adjusted in any angular position by a special swirl mechanism 14 provided at the bottom of the height adjustment mechanism.

Referring to the Fig. 3, dual control panel i.e. analog 17 and digital HMI 16 are provided in the developed AIGRG for the ease of operation. The dual control panel brings exceptional enhancement to the AIGRG by allowing operator to feed all input data manually and allowing machine to automatically select all input parameters based on the number of grooves. The analog control panel has Four push button and One Emergency switch. Function of push button as follows - for forward & reverse operation of the cutter motor assembly two separate push button are there and another for controlling the rotational motion of the chrome leather roller. Homing tab and start operation tab presnt on digital control panel for synchronous motion of grooving. In this only actual number of required grooves on the chrome leather roll need to be entered. The rest of input parameters are automatically computed by the inbuilt software of the digital control panel.

The operation of the developed AIGRG is very simple, the leather roll, which is to be grooved is mounted over head and tail end assemblies. The machine is to be started in either manual mode or automatic mode. The height of the roll cutter assembly is to be adjusted manually in accordance with the roll diameter. The home position of cutter assembly is to be done by using home tab. Initially, actual number of required grooves, are to be fed into the HMI screen. After this we have to start operation in automatic mode by pressing start operation tab. The perfect equidistant spiral grooves are automatically cut of the mounted chrome leather roller within few minutes of its operation.

The major advantage of the present invention is an alternative to manual cutting of spiral grooves on chrome leather rollers. The present invention helps in cutting of spiral grooves with perfect pitch and shape that lead to increased gin productivity, fibre quality parameters and reduced breakdown and maintenance cost. The present invention also overcomes drudgery of operators involved in manual roll cutting operations.

A further advantage of the present invention is automatic adjusting of the distance between two consecutive spiral grooves or pitch of the grooves according to the required number of grooves. Hence the present invention is suitable for grooving of rollers of any size, any diameter and used in any make of the Cotton Ginning Machine.

A further advantage of the present invention is grooving of entire bigger size roller in lesser duration due to use of mechanized automation. The operation of the present development is very simple, only number of grooves is to be fed into the digital HMI and rest of the parameters are computed automatically.

It will be appreciated that the present invention is a simple and effective roll grooving machine over the prior art in that it provides the cutting of precise equidistant spiral grooves on DR gin leather rolls.
Although not specifically illustrated in the drawings, it should be understood that additional equipment and structural components will be provided as necessary, and that all of the components described above are arranged and supported in an appropriate fashion to form a complete and operative System incorporating features of the present invention.

It will be obvious that my invention is susceptible of modification and variation from the embodiment described and shown, and the company do not wish to be restricted to such showing and description except as defined in the appended claims.
, Claims:We claim,

An Auto Indexing Ginning Roll Groover (AIGRG) for cutting of perfect equidistant spiral grooves of desired depth and width on chrome leather rolls of any make, model, size and capacity comprising:

1. A programmable logic controller and servo motor, which automatically computes the amount of rotational angle by which the roll is to be rotated, tracks the rotational angle of the chrome leather roller during grooving and stops the movement of roller as rotational angle matches to the computed value. The servo motor and encoder ensures the cutting of spiral grooves with perfect rolls of any diameter.

2. A Servo motor mechanism for driving the cutter assembly and indexing the roller using motion synchronization.

3. A transverse travelling track for moving the cutter motor assembly in forward or reverse direction.

4. A mechanism for driving the cutter assembly and rotation of the roll to be grooved.

5. A mechanism for height and angle adjustment of cutter assembly.

6. A mechanism for firmly holding the head end and tail end of the roll (of any size, make and model) to be grooved. This mechanism ensures frictionless accurate pitching of the grooves without any rotational error.
Provision for both manual and automatic operation of the AIGRG through dual i.e. analog and digital control panels.