Automatic process for continuously assembling male and female fasteners on carrier sheet

Abstract

An automatic process is provided for continuously assembling male and female fasteners on a carrier sheet, and includes a) continuously advancing the carrier sheet to pass through a narrowest gap between first and second rollers, b) sequentially feeding the male and female fasteners onto the first and second rollers, respectively, and c) rotating the first and second rollers to permit the male and female fasteners respectively on the first and second rollers to sequentially move into the narrowest gap. Each of the male fasteners, once moving into the narrowest gap, extends through the carrier sheet to be brought into fastening engagement with the corresponding female fastener in the narrowest gap.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An automatic process for continuously assembling male fasteners and female fasteners on a carrier sheet, said automatic process comprising the steps of:
 a) continuously advancing the carrier sheet from rear to front to pass through a narrowest gap between a first roller and a second roller in an upright direction, each of the first and second rollers extending in a left-and-right direction;   b) sequentially feeding the male fasteners onto an outer peripheral surface of the first roller, and sequentially feeding the female fasteners onto an outer peripheral surface of the second roller; and   c) rotating the first and second rollers to permit the sequentially fed male fasteners on the first roller to sequentially move into the narrowest gap and to permit the sequentially fed female fasteners on the second roller to sequentially move into the narrowest gap such that each of the male fasteners, once moving into the narrowest gap, is permitted to extend through the advancing carrier sheet to be brought into fastening engagement with a corresponding one of the female fasteners in the narrowest gap, to thereby continuously assemble the male and female fasteners on the advancing carrier sheet.   
     
     
         2 . The automatic process according to  claim 1 , wherein step c) includes the sub-steps of:
 c1) rotating the first roller while vacuuming first retaining holes which are separately formed in the outer peripheral surface of the first roller to be arranged in at least one circumferential row, so as to permit the male fasteners from a first feeding device to be sequentially retained in the first retaining holes by vacuuming and to be sequentially moved to the narrowest gap;   c2) rotating the second roller while vacuuming second retaining holes which are separately formed in the outer peripheral surface of the second roller to be arranged in at least one circumferential row, so as to permit the female fasteners from a second feeding device to be sequentially retained in the second retaining holes by vacuuming and to be sequentially moved to the narrowest gap; and   c3) assembling each of the male fasteners with the corresponding one of the female fasteners in the narrowest gap on the advancing carrier sheet to permit the assembled male and female fasteners to be advanced with the carrier sheet.   
     
     
         3 . The automatic process according to  claim 2 , wherein step c) further includes sub-steps of:
 c4) detecting markers on the advancing carrier sheet;   c5) calculating an advancing speed of the carrier sheet based on a predetermined distance between two adjacent ones of the markers and a time interval between the times when the two adjacent ones of the markers are detected; and   c6) adjusting rotation speed of the first and second rollers based on the calculated advancing speed so as to ensure each of the male fasteners to be brought into fastening engagement with the corresponding one of the female fasteners at a predetermined position on the carrier sheet.