Tobacco – Cigar or cigarette making – Tobacco feeding
Reexamination Certificate
2002-08-07
2004-08-31
Walls, Dionne A. (Department: 1731)
Tobacco
Cigar or cigarette making
Tobacco feeding
C131S109300, C131S108000, C131S084300, C131S084200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06782890
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED CASES
The present application claims the priorities of the commonly owned copending German patent applications Nos. 101 40 309.7 (filed Aug. 16, 2001) and 101 54 807.9 (filed Nov. 8, 2001). The disclosures of the above-referenced German patent applications, as well as those of each US and foreign patent and patent application identified in the specification of the present application, are incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to improvements in machines for making cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos and other smokers' products, particularly smokers' products of the type wherein a rod-like filler of smokable material is confined in a tubular wrapper of cigarette paper or the like. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for treating smokable material, such as a mixture of randomly distributed shredded tobacco leaf laminae (hereinafter called shreds and constituting the higher-quality fraction of comminuted tobacco leaves) and comminuted tobacco ribs, eyes and the like (hereinafter called ribs and constituting the less desirable fraction of comminuted tobacco leaves), prior to the making of the filler.
As a rule, the so-called distributor or hopper of a cigarette making machine receives batches of intermixed tobacco shreds and tobacco ribs and converts such batches into one or more streams or flows which consist primarily or mainly of shreds and contain more tobacco than necessary in a rod-like filler which is ready to be confined in a wrapper. The stream or streams is or are gathered on and are advanced by one or more foraminous belt conveyors which advances or ad-advance the stream(s) past one or more trimming or equalizing devices serving to remove the surplus. Each of thus trimmed streams or fillers is fed into a discrete wrapping mechanism which drapes the single trimmed filler or the respective trimmed filler into a running strip or web of wrapping material. Each of the thus obtained cigarette rods is severed to yield a sequence or file of discrete plain cigarettes of unit length or multiple unit length, and such cigarettes are fed into a packing machine or into a so-called tipping machine wherein the cigarettes (normally of multiple unit length) are united with filter mouthpieces of unit length or multiple unit length to form therewith filter cigarettes of unit length or multiple unit length.
The apparatus of the present invention is designed to treat a mixture of tobacco ribs and tobacco shreds in the distributor or hopper of a cigarette making, cigar making, cigarillo making or an analogous machine prior to conversion of the mixture into one or more streams which are fed to the trimming or equalizing device(s). As a rule, the mixture which enters into and moves in the distributor is treated and advanced by air in conjunction with implements and/or groups of implements including rotary brushes, so-called picker rollers, carded rollers, ducts, belt conveyors, plate-like guides, suction chambers, nozzles and the like. Reference may be had, for example, to commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,086 granted Jul. 8, 1997 to Brand et al. for “APPARATUS FOR EVACUATING SURPLUS AIR FOR (sic!) THE DISTRIBUTOR OF A TOBACCO PROCESSING MACHINE”. The manner in which one or more streams of smokable particles are treated after it issues or they issue from the distributor, and in which the trimmed off surplus is returned into the distributor, is disclosed, for example, in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,742 granted Dec. 17, 1991 to Heitmann for “METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING A FILLER OF SMOKABLE MATERIAL”. Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,826 (granted Jun. 18, 1996 to Heitmann for “APPARATUS FOR REMOVING SURPLUS FROM A TOBACCO STREAM”) discloses one presently preferred trimming or surplus removing device which converts a surplus-containing stream of tobacco particles into a rod-like filler which is ready to be draped into a continuous strip or web of cigarette paper or the like. A cigarette making machine with means for simultaneously trimming two streams of tobacco particles issuing from a distributor is disclosed, for example, in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,640 granted Jan. 16, 1990 to Heitmann et al. for “MULTIPLE-ROD CIGARETTE MAKING MACHINE”.
A drawback of presently known machines for the making of cigarettes or the like is that they are too complex, too bulky or that they fail to produce tobacco streams which are of uniform quality, i.e., which can be converted into rod-shaped smokers' products meeting the highest and strictest requirements regarding the composition of their fillers such as the absence of ribs, the absence of unsatisfactory ribs, the absence of impurities, proper distribution of tobacco dust, uniform density, dense ends of the fillers at the lighted ends of cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos, absence of punctures (such as those caused by tobacco ribs) and the like. In other words, those parameters of the rod-like filler or fillers which are normally monitored by testing equipment in a cigarette making, cigar making or cigarillo making machine preparatory to and during advancement toward the conveyor(s) which gathers or gather the acceptable constituents of one or more streams of smokable material into one or more surplus-containing rod-like fillers should meet the strictest requirements for extended periods of time to thus reduce the percentage of rejects. This involves satisfactory sifting of the air-entrained tobacco shred—tobacco rib mixture preparatory to and during advancement toward the conveyor(s) which gathers or gather the acceptable constituents of one or more streams into one or more surplus-containing streams. Satisfactory regulation of the flow of air in the distributor is of particular importance in order to ensure segregation of any and all or of unacceptable ribs and/or other impurities and to otherwise manipulate the flow or flows of tobacco particles toward the trimming or surplus removing station(s).
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
An object of the instant invention is to provide a novel and improved distributor or hopper for use in or in conjunction with machines for making cigarettes or other smokable material containing commodities.
Another object of our invention is to provide a novel and improved tobacco conveying and classifying arrangement for use in the distributors of cigarette making and other machines for the conversion of mixtures of comminuted tobacco leaves into smokers' products.
A further object of this invention is to provide a novel and improved air circulating and recirculating arrangement for use in the distributors of cigarette making and analogous machines.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a distributor which constitutes an improvement over and a further development of the distributors disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,086 to Brand et al.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a novel and improved method of sifting, conveying and/or otherwise manipulating mixtures of tobacco shreds, tobacco ribs, tobacco dust and impurities in the distributor of a machine for making cigarettes or other smokers' products.
A further object of this invention is to provide a novel and improved method and a novel and improved combination of parts for segregating high-quality fragments of tobacco leaves, reconstituted tobacco and/or artificial tobacco from lower-quality fragments and/or impurities.
Another object of the invention is to provide a machine for making cigarettes or other smokers' products which includes or is associated with a distributor or hopper embodying the above-enumerated novel features and exhibiting important advantages over presently known machines and their distributors.
An additional object of our present invention is to provide a compact and relatively inexpensive long-lasting tobacco processing apparatus which can be combined with or incorporated in available machines for making cigarettes or other rod-shaped smokers' products.
Still
Barkmann Ralf
Hansch Manuel
Hoppe Reinhard
Jürgens Bernhard
Lindemann Rolf
Anderson Chad C.
Hauni Maschinenbau AG
Kinberg Robert
Venable LLP
Walls Dionne A.
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