Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor section – Unit load conveying surface means moved about an endless or...
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-08
2001-01-23
Ellis, Christopher P. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor section
Unit load conveying surface means moved about an endless or...
C198S867140, C198S803140
Reexamination Certificate
active
06176369
ABSTRACT:
TITLE OF THE INVENTION
Steerable Carrier Puck
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention pertains to carrier pucks for receiving and supporting objects to be moved onto conveyors along a production line. More specifically, the present invention is concerned with a carrier puck that can be positioned and maintained in predetermined rotational orientations on conveyors along a production line.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Carrier pucks are well known in the manufacturing and packaging industries. Their primary use is to support and stablize objects while moving along a production line. Carrier pucks are also very useful to protect fragile objects from collision during conveying.
A convenient way to convey carrier pucks is to move them in bulk between the stations of the assembly line. The main reason to convey puck in bulk is to allow the pucks to accumulate between each station. In doing this, the line can be kept running even though one or more stations are down because of jamming, repairs, or the like.
Bulk conveying is preferably done using round pucks. A round causes minimal surface contact to other similar pucks, minimizing friction and allowing bulk conveying while preventing jamming along the production line.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,248, entitled “Device and Method for Conveying and Orienting Randomized Circular Product-Carrying Pucks”, issued to Goodman, Jr. et al. on May 12, 1987, discloses a generally round carrier puck. The round puck has two distinct outer contacting surfaces. A first surface which is round and toothed and a second slide surface which is cut flat in an arc of circumference. As the puck travels on the conveying surface it will encounter a toothed side guide which engages the toothed round portion of the puck thus imparting rotation of the puck until it reaches the flat surface which will stop rotation and cause the puck to slide forward in the direction of travel of the conveyor. A drawback of this arrangement is that the puyck can only be oriented in one preferred direction (or at 180° from the preferred direction). Another drawback is that a pucks according to that invention cannot easily be spaced apart from one another.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,762, issued on Jan. 2nd of 1996 to Bliss and entitled “Carrier Puck”, discloses a rectangular carrier puck having lateral ears which fit recesses in the conveyor belt. The ears-recesses system restrains the puck movement allowing the pucks to be correctly oriented and equally spaced along the conveyor. However, a major drawback of such arrangement is that it is unsuitable for bulk conveying.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,052, issued to Pawloski et al. on Jan. 16, 1996 and also entitled “Carrier Puck”, describes a carrier puck having a rectangular base and a cylindrical top. The puck is shaped to receive either a first or a second article having different dimensions and shape. The rectangular base allows the puck to be oriented in four quadrants (90° increments) by sliding on conveyor lateral guides. However, since the base in rectangular, it is not possible to know in which quadrant the puck is oriented with additional data. Such data is obtained by four recesses with one recess located in each quadrant of the cyclindrical sides of the puck allowing mechanical sensors mounted to a conveyor to sense when the puck is properly oriented to receive either the first or the second articles. An important drawback is the lack of control over the quadrant orientation of the puck. Once the puck is in a given orientation, it will continue that way.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide a steerable carrier puck which is suitable for bulk conveying and which avoids the drawbacks of the prior art.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a carrier puck manufactured to a precise weight tolerances so as to provide exact weight readings on the load of a loaded carrier puck by weighing the loaded carrier puck and subtracting the known weight of the empty carrier puck.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a carrier puck of a diameter similar to the size of the object being conveyed.
A further object of the present invention is provide a two-piece assembled carrier puck with interchangeable top and interchangeable bottom portions.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
More specifically, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided a carrier puck for movement on a conveying circuit comprising at least one conveyor having lateral guides including at least two vertically spaced and distant lateral guide plates adapted to slidably engage a distinct portion of said carrier puck to temporarily prevent rotation of said carrier puck while advancing on said conveying circuit;
said carrier puck comprising a main body having a rotational axis, said main body comprising:
an open top for receiving at least one object to be conveyed,
a conveyor-contacting bottom portion,
a round peripheral rim centered about said rotational axis, and
an outer wall surface comprising the round peripheral rim and extending between the top and bottom portions of said carrier puck, said outer wall having at least two guide-contacting portions configured and sized to selectively and slidably engage at least one of said lateral guide plates on said conveying circuit; each said guide-contacting portions defining a specific angle about said rotational axis;
whereby when said carrier puck is in rotation about said rotational axis, said carrier puck is oriented and maintained in a desired position when a given guide-contacting portion slidably engages the guide plate configured and sized to slidably engage the given guide-contacting portion.
Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become more apparent upon reading of the following non restrictive description of preferred embodiments thereof, given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3941237 (1976-03-01), MacGregor, Jr.
patent: 4159762 (1979-07-01), Bulworth
patent: 4189996 (1980-02-01), Ackley, Sr. et al.
patent: 4664248 (1987-05-01), Goodman, Jr. et al.
patent: 4708250 (1987-11-01), Van Der Schoot
patent: 4729413 (1988-03-01), Shults
patent: 4778045 (1988-10-01), Grune et al.
patent: 4807421 (1989-02-01), Araki et al.
patent: 5479762 (1996-01-01), Bliss
patent: 5484052 (1996-01-01), Pawloski et al.
patent: 5509524 (1996-04-01), Ohmori et al.
patent: 5564551 (1996-10-01), Schmitt
patent: 5579696 (1996-12-01), Cockayne
patent: 5769203 (1998-06-01), Sala
patent: 5941366 (1999-08-01), Quinlan et al.
Andrus Sceales Starke & Sawall LLP
Ellis Christopher P.
GEBO Conveyors Consultants & Systems, Inc.
Sharma Rashmi
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