Tobacco – Cigar or cigarette making – Including arranging – collecting – or delivering
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-24
2003-02-11
Griffin, Steven P. (Department: 1731)
Tobacco
Cigar or cigarette making
Including arranging, collecting, or delivering
C131S096000, C131S108000, C131S110000, C406S182000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06516810
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED CASES
This application claims the priority of commonly owned German patent application Serial No. 199 41 268.5 filed Aug. 31, 1999. The disclosure of the above-referenced German patent application, as well as that of each U.S. and foreign patent and patent application mentioned in the specification of the present application, is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to pneumatic conveyor systems in general, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for pneumatically transferring or transporting successive commodities or groups of commodities from the outlet of a supplying unit to the inlet of a receiving unit. Examples of commodities which can be readily transferred or transported in the apparatus of the present invention (e.g., from a maker to a storage facility or to a processing machine) are rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry such as plain or filter cigarettes, filter rod sections and the like.
The invention also relates to improvements in methods of pneumatically conveying various commodities, such as rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry.
It is often advisable, desirable or necessary to install a filter rod making machine (e.g., a machine of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,974,007 granted Aug. 10, 1976 to Greve for “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF FILTER ROD SECTIONS OR THE LIKE”) at a distance from a so-called filter tipping machine wherein filter rod sections are united with plain cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos to form filter cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos of unit length or multiple unit length. A filter tipping machine wherein filter mouthpieces of double unit length are united with pairs of plain cigarettes of unit length to form filter cigarettes of double unit length (which are thereupon divided into pairs of filter cigarettes of unit length) is disclosed, for example, in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,008 granted Aug. 4, 1992 to Oesterling et al. for “METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING FILTER CIGARETTES”. The connection between the outlet of the filter rod making machine and the inlet of the magazine of the filter tipping machine is normally established by a pneumatic conveyor which is designed to propel successive filter rod sections of desired or required length by way of a suitable conduit.
Since a modern filter tipping machine can turn out huge quantities of filter cigarettes per unit of time, it was customary to employ two pneumatic conveyors each of which was designed to receive a file of successive filter rod sections from the outlet of a discrete supplying unit and to deliver successive filter rod sections to a discrete receiving station of the filter tipping machine. Such bulky, complex and expensive connections between the source or sources of filter rod sections and the tipping machine were replaced with a simpler pneumatic conveyor which was designed to deliver a single file of filter rod sections to a single tipping machine or to another receiving or storing unit; such simplification was made possible due to recent extensive improvements in pneumatic conveyors for the transport of filter rod sections or the like.
However, such recent types of high-speed high-capacity pneumatic conveyors exhibit the drawback that any obstruction in the single path for the transport of filter rod sections from a maker or another source to a filter tipping machine or another article storing and/or processing machine or unit invariably entails extensive losses in output and potential stoppage of an entire production line wherein makers of plain cigarettes and filter rod sections cooperate with various assembling and processing machines to turn out boxes or crates of so-called cartons containing groups of packets (such as ten packets) each of which contains an array of say twenty filter cigarettes or the like.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
An important object of the present invention is to provide a simple and relatively inexpensive pneumatic transporting or conveying apparatus which is much more reliable but need not be bulkier than the presently known apparatus for the transport of rod-shaped articles or the like.
Another object of the invention is to provide a pneumatic article transporting apparatus which is constructed and assembled in such a way that it can automatically eliminate pileups of stagnant articles between the outlet of an article sending unit and the inlet of an article receiving unit without the need for an interruption of the delivery of articles between such units.
A further object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which is designed to treat the conveyed commodities gently regardless of the selected rate of delivery of commodities from a single outlet of a sending unit to a single inlet of a receiving unit.
An additional object of the invention is to provide the above outlined apparatus with novel and improved means for guiding, shifting and/or otherwise manipulating the commodities between the single outlet of a sending unit and the single inlet of the receiving unit.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved method of pneumatically transporting rod-shaped articles between a maker or a first storing device and a consumer in such a way that the rate at which the articles are being transported departs from a desired optimum rate only when such departure is dictated and/or rendered desirable by eventual malfunctioning or intentional adjustments of the maker and/or consumer or processor of such articles.
A further object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved method of counteracting undesirable effects of clogging of the route or routes between the maker and the consumer of pneumatically conveyed commodities.
Was Another object of the invention is to provide novel and improved article switching or shifting devices for use in the above outlined apparatus.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved unclogging system for use in the above outlined apparatus.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved process for the elimination of pileups of commodities in the above outlined apparatus without any, or any appreciable, interruption of pneumatic delivery of commodities from a single outlet of the sending unit to the single inlet of the receiving (such as storing and/or processing and/or inspecting) unit.
A further object of the invention is to provide an automated or automatic pneumatic article transporting apparatus which can deliver selected quantities of articles to a consumer for any desired period of time, irrespective of eventual frequent or infrequent, partial or complete obstruction of a chosen path for the delivery of articles from a sender to a receiver.
Another object of the invention is to provide the above outlined apparatus with novel and improved means for gathering and/or otherwise recovering those commodities which must be removed from a locale where the commodities accumulate due to a clogging within the selected path for the advancement of selected quantities of commodities from a maker or sender to a consumer or processor or storer of such commodities.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
One feature of the present invention resides in the provision of an apparatus for pneumatically transferring successive articles of a series of articles (such as rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry) from the outlet of an article sending unit (such as a single outlet of a maker or combined storage facility and pneumatic conveyor) to an inlet of an article receiving unit (e.g., a single inlet of a filter tipping machine). The improved apparatus comprises at least two conduits having article receiving ends separably connectable with the outlet of the sending unit and article discharging ends separably connectable with the inlet of the receiving unit, and means for selectively connecting one of the at least two conduits with the sending and receiving units and for simultaneosly disconnecting the other-condu
Griffin Steven P.
Hauni Maschinenbau AG
Lopez Carlos
Venable LLP
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