Programmable light director system

Claim 1

A programmable light director system for randomly routing wires on a harness board comprising: (i) light source means for generating a light beam; (ii) two-axis control means operative with said light source means for controlling the projection of said light beam on said harness board; (iii) central processor means operatively coupled to said two-axis control means to generate command signals thereto from predetermined wire path data base to cause said two-axis control means to move the light beam continuously along a wire path in response thereto, said central processor means including scanning wand input means for automatically identifying each of said wires to be routed, said central processor means further including digitizing means for assigning coordinates to the points comprising said wire path.

Claim 20

A method of randomly routing wires on a wire harness board comprising the steps of: identifying automatically each of said wires to be routed; providing a predetermined harness pattern having a plurality of wire paths; assigning numbers to a plurality of points along the harness pattern including the end points thereof; digitizing each of said points to form a (1) point number coordinate data set; compiling a (2) wire path data set for each of said wire paths from said assigned point numbers such that each of said number sets progresses from the initial to terminal number of its associated path; providing a (3) discrete wire identification-path data set relating each wire to an associated path data set; utilizing data sets (1), (2) and (3) to identify a discrete wire for routing in the harness, assign the identified wire to a path data set, and to sequentially transform the path data set numbers into coordinates, and moving a light beam continuously along the coordinates to trace out the path of each wire on said harness board.

Claim 21

A method of randomly routing wires on a wire harness board comprising the steps of: identifying automatically each of said wires to be routed; providing a predetermined harness pattern having a plurality of wire paths; assigning numbers to a plurality of points along the harness pattern including the end points thereof; digitizing each of said points to form a (1) point number coordinate data set; compiling a (2) wire path data set for each of said wire paths from said assigned point numbers such that each of said number sets progresses from the initial to terminal number of its associated path; providing a (3) discrete wire identification-path data set relating each wire to an associated path data set; utilizing data sets (1), (2) and (3) to identify a discrete wire for routing in the harness, assign the identified wire to a path data set, and to sequentially transform the path data set numbers into coordinates, and moving a light beam continuously along the coordinates to trace out the path of each wire on said harness board.

Claim 22

A method of directing a light beam onto a surface to display a continuous light point path comprising the steps of: (i) moving a light source along a path relative to said surface; (ii) directing a beam from said source along a first path portion; (iii) reflecting said beam at the end of said first path portion with a reflector; (iv) rotating said reflector to cause said beam to be reflected along any one of a plurality of second path portions determined by the angle between said first path portion and said reflector; and (v) correlating the linear movement of the light source with the rotation of said reflector, whereby two-axis control of said light beam is achieved.

Claim 23

A method of directing a light beam onto a surface to display a continuous light point path comprising the steps of: (i) moving a light source along a path relative to said surface; (ii) directing a beam from said source along a first path portion; (iii) reflecting said beam at the end of said first path portion with a reflector; (iv) rotating said reflector to cause said beam to be reflected along any one of a plurality of second path portions determined by the angle between said first path portion and said reflector; and (v) correlating the linear movement of the light source with the rotation of said reflector, whereby two-axis control of said light beam is achieved.