| 摘要 |
<p>PURPOSE:To shorten the time required for the replacement of cassettes by simultaneously holding and lifting a cassette stored in a buffer and a cassette stored in a cassette loading port of a retrieving device and rotating both the cassettes so as to exchange their positions. CONSTITUTION:A required cassette 12 is selected by a carrier arranged on one side of a rack 10 for two-dimensionally storing cassettes and carried to the window 16 of the rack 10. The buffer 70 faces the window 16 from the opposite side, the cassette is transferred to the buffer 70 through the window 16 and the buffer 70 receives the cassette 12 on a horizontal position and rotates it to a vertical position. A lift 72 is descended, one of cassette grips grasps an unretrieved cassette stored in the buffer, and when a retrieved cassette exists in the cassette loading port of the retrieving device, another grip grasps the cassette. The lift 72 is lifted, rotated and then descended to load the unretrieved cassette to the cassette loading port and transfer the retrieved cassette to the buffer 70. Thus, the time required for replacing cassettes can be shortened without increasing the number of carriers.</p> |
