TYING MACHINE AND METHOD

摘要

An apparatus to tie a ribbon around an object, such as a bundle (22) of wires, said apparatus comprising: a) a housing having: 1) a wrapping area where there is a longitudinal axis (52), a vertical axis (54), and a transverse axis (56) perpendicular to and intersecting the longitudinal and vertical axes; 2) a reference plane coinciding with said longitudinal and vertical axes; and 3) a tying area spaced from said transverse axis; said wrapping area having first and second sides on opposite sides of said reference plane, and an outside direction denoting location further from said transverse axis and an inside direction denoting location closer to said transverse axis; b) a carrier (30) mounted to the housing and adapted to engage a lead portion of said ribbon and move in a wrapping path circumscribing said wrapping area; c) transversely movable locating and tie means (46, 48, 50) to locate said ribbon around said wrapping area and to move said ribbon transversely; d) control means to move said carrier in a circumferentially forward direction along said wrapping path to the tying area so that a wrapping portion of the ribbon extends around the wrapping area and a trailing portion of the ribbon is positioned at the tying area on the second side of the lead portion, and to operate the locating and tie means to move the lead portion and trailing portion tranversely relative to one another in one direction to move said lead portion to the second side of the trailing portion, with one of the portions being outside the other of the portions, then moving the lead portion and trailing portion transversely relative to one another in an opposite direction to move said lead portion to the first side of the trailing portion, with the other of said portions being inside said one of said portions to form a tie at the tie area.