BATTERY JAR COVER SYSTEM

摘要

A battery jar cover and a system for welding the battery jar cover onto a battery jar with the battery elements and terminal post in position within the jar and with the cover placed in position. The battery jar cover (10) has a guide device (34) comprising posts (36) and flanges (38) depending from the bottom thereof and positioned so as to extend about at least predetermined portions of the periphery of the cover and inwardly from the sides thereof. The guide device is shaped so that it extends downwardly from the bottom of the cover a greater degree adjacent the corners and to a lesser degree adjacent the central position of each side. The system includes a welding apparatus (100) that includes a deck assembly (114), a carriage assembly (116) and a welding head assembly (118). The apparatus further employs separate heating and clamping mechanisms (444), (420) extending on each side of the jar so that the cover does not have to be lifted completely off the jar during welding. This structure greatly reduces the time required to change over from one size to another thereby increasing the per unit processing capacity of the device. Further, in order that a variety of jar sizes be rapidly handled, two of the heating and clamping mechanisms are relatively long while the other two are relatively short and equal to the constant width dimension of batteries. The apparatus accomplishes the loading operation automatically, and by not removing the cover fully from the jar, better and more accurate welds are produced.