Machine for treating, particularly for inductively hardening workpieces

Claim 1

In an apparatus for treating and particularly for inductively hardening workpieces having an axis of rotation mounted between a pair of carrier arms of an indexable spider, said arms being fitted with spindle centers which can be moved in opposite directions to grip the workpieces between them and intermittently to convey the workpieces from a loading station to one or more treating stations and then to an unloading station, the improvement comprising energy storage devices mounted with the centers for urging the same into work gripping position, actuators at the loading and unloading stations for transferring the centers into their work releasing position, monitoring means for checking whether a workpiece has been correctly received after loading, a lifting beam conveyor comprising a stationary beam and a lifting beam for feeding the workpieces in a foreward and rearward direction relative to the loading station, each beam comprising a plurality of workpiece rests, the last workpiece rest on the stationary beam of the lifting beam conveyor alignIng with the centers which have arrived at the loading station, drive means for generating lifting beam motion in both directions and control means responsive to said monitoring means for stopping the lifting beam in a first rest position below the stationary beam, which serves as a starting and end position for a conveying step and in a second rest position above the stationary beam, and for reversing the direction of motion of the drive means at either of the two rest positions of the lifting beam.