Title: Apparatus for transporting successive printed circuit boards to and from a work station

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Abstract: An apparatus for transporting successive printed circuit boards to and from a working station at which a plurality of operations are performed thereon, for example, to insert electronic elements in each board, comprises a positioning table at the working station for supporting a printed circuit board and which is turnable to change the orientation of the board for the successive operations to be performed thereon, a magazine at a loading station spaced from the working station for containing a stack of the printed circuit boards from which the latter are removed or separated one-by-one, and a conveying assembly operative to receive each board separated from the stack at the loading station and deliver such board to the positioning table at the work station and, simultaneously, to pick up a board from the positioning table after the completion of the operations thereon at the working station and discharge the completed board at an unloading station. The conveying assembly is advantageously turnable about an axis spaced equally from the loading, working and unloading stations and includes a first carrying device movable in an arcuate path between the loading and working stations in response to turning of the conveying assembly to a predetermined angular extent for the delivery to the working station of each board separated from the stack, and a second carrying device fixedly spaced from the first carrying device by the predetermined angular extent for moving in an extension of the arcuate path between the working and unloading stations so as to discharge at the unloading station the completed board picked up at the working station.


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