Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor for changing attitude of item relative to conveyed... – By conveying randomly faced items and turning items to...
Patent
1989-09-12
1991-04-23
Valenza, Joseph E.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor for changing attitude of item relative to conveyed...
By conveying randomly faced items and turning items to...
198399, 1984652, 1984741, B65G 4724
Patent
active
050093053
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to article orientators of the kind in which selected ones of a series of articles being transported by a conveyor are turned so that they have a predetermined orientation with respect to the other articles of the series.
The invention has particular, out not exclusive, application in the glassware industry where, for example, bottles of generally rectangular cross-section and having two major faces one of which is differently shaped from the other, e.g. one is convex and the other concave or planar, are fed upright from a manufacturing machine on to a conveyor but in random orientation. The bottles are fed through the orientator which turns selected ones of the bottles so that for example they all have the same orientation.
One known orientator comprises a pair of endless belts which are arranged to be brought into frictional engagement with the circular neck of a selected bottle to be turned at diametrically opposite positions, the belts being arranged to run in opposite directions so that they apply a turning couple to the neck, to turn it for example, through 180.degree..
Such an orientator has certain disadvantages. One disadvantage is that if the bottle has widely differing major and minor axes and the bottles travel along the conveyor with one of their minor faces leading, space has to be provided across the width of the conveyor to accommodate the major axis when a bottle is being turned. This leads to problems in providing adequate lateral guidance for bottles being transported along the conveyor. Another disadvantage is that the turning couple imparted by the belts is somewhat imprecise. If the diameter of the bottle necks vary, the turning of some of the bottles can be greater or less than the desired amount.
The object of the present invention is to provide an orientator which does not suffer from the aforesaid disadvantages.
According to the invention, an article orientator which is disposed in the path of a conveyor for transporting the articles, comprises a plurality of article holders which are bodily movable to divert an article located in the holder out of the conveyor path and then back in to it again with a changed orientation, the article holders being movable independently of each other.
Advantageously a plurality of the article holders are arranged to move around a common endless path in incremental movements, the number of article holders disposed around said path being such as to leave free a path space in said endless path equal to at least one said incremental movement.
Preferably the article holders are arranged to be independently rotated in angular increments about a common axis so that said common endless path is circular. For example there may be three article holders arranged to be rotated in angular increments of 90.degree. about said common axis. Thus where an article holder moves through 180.degree. in order to divert an article off the conveyor and back on to it again, the orientation of an article in the holder is automatically changed by 180.degree..
One construction of orientator in accordance with the invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 shows a schematic plan view of the orientator,
FIG. 2 shows a plurality of sequence diagrams for illustrating the operation of the orientator,
FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of one of the article holders,
FIG. 4 is a plan view of the three article holders, and
FIG. 5 is a perspective view showing the driving arrangement of the three article holders.
Referring more particularly to FIG. 1, the orientator 11 is shown incorporated into a bottle conveyor 12. In this example the bottles 13 are shown as having opposing major faces, one face 14 of which is convex and the other face 15 substantially planar.
The bottles are transported by the conveyor side-ways on, i.e. with one minor face 16 leading. The purpose of the orientator 11 is to turn selected bottles through 180.degree.. For example if the bottles are fed on to the conveyor with a rand
REFERENCES:
patent: 1696360 (1928-12-01), Peyser
patent: 3216551 (1965-11-01), Peck
patent: 3595368 (1971-07-01), Mantovani
patent: 3961698 (1976-06-01), Ahlenius et al.
patent: 4513852 (1985-04-01), Fegley et al.
patent: 4530430 (1985-07-01), Peterlini
patent: 4545476 (1985-10-01), Calvert
patent: 4653628 (1987-03-01), Claypool et al.
Auld John W.
Stringer Brian F.
Noshe Engineering Limited
Valenza Joseph E.
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