This invention relates to an automatic insulating tape wrapping apparatus, and more particularly an automatic insulating tape wrapping apparatus suitable to wrap an insulating tape about a conductor coil including a straight portion and a curved portion as shown in FIG. 1, for example.
When wrapping an insulating tape about a relatively small hexagonal coil 1 as shown in FIG. 1 of a dynamoelectric machine, the coil 1 and a head carrying a rotating ring paying out the tape are moved relatively. Since the size of the coil is small it is necessary to increase the operating speed of the tape wrapping apparatus. Otherwise, the advantage of using the automatic wrapping apparatus would be lost. With a manual wrapping operation, the straight portion of a relatively small hexagonal coil of a dynamoelectric machine can be wrapped with an insulating tape at a speed of 50 mm/sec. or more.
Considering a central straight portion 1a, bent or curved portions 1b and 1c, inclined end portions 1d and 1e (excluding their extremities), as these portions lie in the same plane, wrapping operation is relatively easy. However, wrapping of bent or curved portions 1b and 1c is rather difficult. For the purpose of wrapping the tape about the curved portions at substantially the same accuracy as manual working, according to a prior art apparatus each one of the curved portions was divided into at least more than 10 sections to such an extent that each section can be deemed at a straight section. Alternatively, the rotating angle of the rotating ring is detected frequently so as to control the speed of the rotating ring in accordance with the detected rotation angle with a computer. Accordingly, it is necessary to use a computer having a large memory capacity and a high calculation speed and to use a high speed and accurate detector and control device.
In the operation of automatic insulating tape wrapping apparatus, it was found that in order to improve the accuracy it is necessary to synchronously operate a drive device for rotating the rotating ring and a drive device for displacing the rotating ring and for changing the angle of rotation thereof.