Terminal crimping devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10088455-B2
Application number	US-201414296328-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 4, 2014
Priority date	Jun 4, 2014
Publication date	Oct 2, 2018
Grant date	Oct 2, 2018

Abstract

A terminal crimping device includes crimp tooling comprising an anvil and a ram. A crimp zone is defined between the anvil and the ram. The crimp zone is configured to receive a wire and a terminal. The crimp tooling crimps the terminal to the wire during a crimp stroke. The terminal crimping device also includes an ultrasonic transducer module having at least one ultrasonic transducer held by at least one of the anvil or the ram. The ultrasonic transducer generates a plurality of ultrasonic pulses during the crimp stroke and directs the ultrasonic pluses through the terminal. The ultrasonic transducer receives the ultrasonic pulses and generates ultrasonic data based on the received ultrasonic pulses. The terminal crimp tooling also includes a crimp quality module communicatively coupled to the ultrasonic transducer module. The crimp quality module performs coherent processing of the ultrasonic data to determine a crimp quality.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A terminal crimping device comprising:
crimp tooling comprising an anvil and a ram, a crimp zone being defined between the anvil and the ram configured to receive a wire and a terminal, the crimp tooling crimping the terminal to the wire during a crimp stroke;
an ultrasonic transducer module having at least one ultrasonic transducer held by the anvil or the ram, the ultrasonic transducer on the anvil or the ram generating a plurality of ultrasonic pulses during the crimp stroke and directing the ultrasonic pulses through the terminal, the ultrasonic transducer on the same one of the anvil or the ram receiving the ultrasonic pulses and generating ultrasonic data during the crimp stroke based on the received ultrasonic pulses; and
a crimp quality module communicatively coupled to the ultrasonic transducer module, the crimp quality module performing coherent processing during the crimp stroke of the ultrasonic data generated during the crimp stroke to determine a crimp quality.

2. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing during substantially an entire crimping process of the crimp stroke from initial contact of the ram with the terminal until release of the ram from the terminal.

3. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing during a crimping process of the crimp stroke from a time period prior to bottom dead center of the crimp stroke to a time period post bottom dead center of the crimp stroke.

4. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the ultrasonic data represents an energy associated with the ultrasonic pulses.

5. The terminal crimping device of claim 4 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing to determine a maximum energy received during the crimping process and determine a crimp quality based on the maximum energy.

6. The terminal crimping device of claim 4 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing by integrating the energy of at least a portion of the ultrasonic data associated with the crimp stroke.

7. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the ultrasonic transducer delivers the plurality of ultrasonic pulses at a rate of at least 3 pulses during the crimping process.

8. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the crimp quality module compares several pulses to determine a performance metric, the crimp quality based on the performance metric, the performance metric including a statistical measure based on a comparison between the ultrasonic data and expected data.

9. The terminal crimping device of claim 8 , wherein ultrasonic quality module performs coherent processing to determine the quality of the crimp based on at least one of an area under an energy curve, or a performance metric.

10. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the ultrasonic transducer transmits ultrasonic pulses over a plurality of frequency bands, the crimp quality module filtering the ultrasonic data in at least one of the frequency bands to determine the crimp quality.

11. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the ultrasonic transducer module includes a transmitting ultrasonic transducer and a receiving ultrasonic transducer.

12. The terminal crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one ultrasonic transducer is configured to operate in an echo mode, wherein the ultrasonic transducer both sends and receives the ultrasonic pulses.

13. A terminal crimping device comprising:
crimp tooling comprising an anvil and a ram, a crimp zone being defined between the anvil and the ram configured to receive a wire and a terminal, the crimp tooling crimping the terminal to the wire during a crimp stroke; the crimp stroke having a crimping phase that begins after initial contact between the ram and the terminal to a bottom dead center of the crimp tooling, a retracting phase that begins after the bottom dead center, and a release phase that begins after the ram releases the terminal;
an ultrasonic transducer module having at least one ultrasonic transducer held by at least one of the anvil or the ram, the ultrasonic transducer generating a plurality of ultrasonic pulses during the crimp stroke and directing the ultrasonic pulses through the terminal during the crimping phase, the ultrasonic transducer receiving the ultrasonic pulses and generating ultrasonic data during the crimp stroke based on the received ultrasonic pulses; and
a crimp quality module communicatively coupled to the ultrasonic transducer module, the crimp quality module performing coherent processing during the crimp stroke of the ultrasonic data from the crimping phase to determine a crimp quality.

14. The terminal crimping device of claim 13 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing from a time period prior to the bottom dead center at least to a time period of the bottom dead center.

15. The terminal crimping device of claim 13 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing in both the crimping phase and the retracting phase.

16. The terminal crimping device of claim 13 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing by integrating an energy of at least a portion of the ultrasonic data associated with the crimp stroke.

17. A terminal crimping device comprising:
crimp tooling comprising an anvil and a ram, a crimp zone being defined between the anvil and the ram configured to receive a wire and a terminal, the crimp tooling crimping the terminal to the wire during a crimp stroke;
an ultrasonic transducer module having at least one ultrasonic transducer held by at least one of the anvil or the ram, the ultrasonic transducer generating a plurality of ultrasonic pulses over a plurality of frequency bands during the crimp stroke and directing the ultrasonic pulses through the terminal, the plurality of frequency bands including a high frequency band, and a low frequency band, the ultrasonic transducer receiving the ultrasonic pulses during the crimp stroke and generating ultrasonic data based during the crimp stroke on the received ultrasonic pulses; and
a crimp quality module communicatively coupled to the ultrasonic transducer module, the crimp quality module performing coherent processing during the crimp stroke of the ultrasonic data in the frequency bands to determine a crimp quality, the crimp quality module performing filtering of the ultrasonic data in at least one of the high frequency band or the low frequency band.

18. The terminal crimping device of claim 17 , wherein the crimp quality module performs coherent processing of high frequency band filtered ultrasonic data and low frequency band filtered ultrasonic data.

19. The terminal crimping device of claim 18 , wherein ultrasonic quality module performs coherent processing to determine the quality of the crimp based on at least one of a maximum energy, an area under an energy curve, or a performance metric.

20. The terminal crimping device of claim 17 , wherein the crimp quality module compares several pulses to determine a performance metric, the crimp quality based on the performance metric.

Assignees

• Tyco Electronics Corp
• Te Connectivity Corp

Inventors

• Maalouf Khalil John
• Charlton John Dunaway
• Stull David Michael
• Fry Charles David

Classifications

• G01N2291/2698

  Other discrete objects, e.g. bricks · CPC title

• G01N29/343

  pulse waves, e.g. particular sequence of pulses, bursts · CPC title

• G01N29/11 Primary

  by measuring attenuation of acoustic waves · CPC title

• Y10T29/53022

  with means to test work or product · CPC title

• H01R43/0486

  with force measuring means · CPC title