The present invention relates to an electronic component transporting apparatus employing taping cassettes. Taping cassettes are elongated containers for leadless electronic components, such as capacitors and resistors in chip form. Each taping cassette has a series of compartments arranged at regular spacings along the direction of elongation, each compartment accommodating a single electronic component, the compartments being sealed by a longitudinally extending length of sealing tape which is removably attached (i.e. by suitable adhesive material) to the body of the taping cassette. Such taping cassettes are generally used in the manufacturing of electronic equipment, for transporting small electronic components to be successively mounted on electronic circuit substrates or circuit boards by automatic apparatus.
An example of a prior art type of electronic component transporting apparatus employing taping cassettes is disclosed in Japanese patent No. 56-118698. That apparatus is only applicable to taping cassettes which are of the form shown in FIG. 1, in which the body of the taping cassette (formed of relatively thick tape) is indicated as b. A series of compartments g for respectively accommodating electronic components is formed by rectangular apertures formed in taping cassette body b, with the base of each of compartments g being formed by a retaining tape e which is attached to the lower surface of the body b. A sealing tape d is attached to the upper face of body b, for sealing respective electronic components f within successive ones of compartments g. A series of perforations c is formed along one side of body b of the taping cassette, adjacent to one edge of the taping cassette as shown. The perforations c are provided to permit the taping cassette to be moved along the direction of elongation thereof, by appropriate drive means engaged within the apertures c, i.e. peripheral toothed portions of a drive wheel, whereby the taping cassette can be successively moved into specific positions.
However the necessity of such a prior art of taping cassette to form the perforations c along one side of the cassette results in the overall width H of the taping cassette being increased beyond the minimum width necessary for accommodating the electronic components. This increase in width presents several problems. For example, an electronic component mounting apparatus is disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese patent No. 55-118698 whereby a plurality of taping cassettes is disposed mutually parallel within a component supply section. However if the width H of each taping cassette is relatively large, then the overall size of the component supply section will be correspondingly increased, thereby increasing the size of the electronic component mounting apparatus. In addition, a portion of the electronic component mounting apparatus must move between different ones of the plurality of taping cassettes, to sequentially select and remove components from different taping cassettes. Any increase in the width H of each taping cassette will result in an increase in the time required to perform such component selection and removal, so that the maximum rate of productivity will be lowered.