Package making – Group forming of contents unit and subsequent or further... – Layer – stack – or column
Patent
1995-07-24
1997-05-20
Moon, Daniel
Package making
Group forming of contents unit and subsequent or further...
Layer, stack, or column
1984193, 1984598, 1984671, 1984683, B65B 3530
Patent
active
056303114
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is related to an apparatus for forming lots of products and separating said lots from each other for the packing thereof.
DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART
Systems for separating products by means of variable pitch screws are known at the present time, but they can only form lots in the form of a row or several rows of units arranged side by side with a relatively large distance between them and not lots of grouped products.
In automatic installations for the handling of bottles or vertical flasks for the packing of them in cartons, use has been made for a long time of series of gripper heads, mounted on the same common support of a machine, of a cylinder-piston unit or any other apparatus, which are provided with gripping means intended to grasp, for instance, the necks of bottles at a first station and release them at a second station where the lots thus formed are packed.
However, these types of installations do not make it possible to operate continuously and they comprise complicated mechanical means which are subject to breakdowns which make it necessary to interrupt the operation of the production line in order to install new pieces.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to overcome these drawbacks by providing an apparatus which makes it possible to operate continuously without the necessity of transferring products such as bottles from one station to another.
The apparatus in accordance with the invention is intended to be placed at the entrance of the products to be packed which are transported by a conveyor and arranged in contiguous rows, and it is characterized essentially by the fact that it comprises a transfer chain or belt which is stretched between two drive wheels with vertical axes and is provided with uniformly spaced fixing means each intended for the attachment of a carriage having a movable separation and holding element of hood type, with or without gripper, the function of which is to cover a given number of products so as to form a lot from them, one of the strands of said chain having two offsets, the first located at a short distance behind the feed wheel for the carriages, or making it possible to disconnect the carriages from the chain upon their passage, the fastening of said carriages to the chain being then relayed by the engagement, into the groove of a variable pitch screw having its axis parallel to the straight line joining the two points of offset, of a roller which is firmly fastened to said carriage and which continues the driving of the carriage and therefore of the lot, progressively creating an increasing space between said carriages and therefore between the successive lots, the carriages being hooked again to the chain when they arrive at the place of the second offset, which is located a short distance in front of the return wheel for the carriages.
The sequence of the operations is as follows: First of all, the carriages are brought, at the speed of the transfer chain, above the products to be packed, towards the first offset where their speed is reduced upon the shift effected by engagement of the rollers in the variable pitch screw the pitch of which is initially reduced over a certain length of said screw in order to permit the placing side by side of a number of carriages the hood of which is then moved in translation temporarily so as to cover a given number of products forming a lot, whereupon the speed of the carriages is increased by increase of the pitch of the screw while at the same time they are moved away from each other by a certain distance in order to permit the subsequent boxing of the lots and, finally, upon arriving at the place of the second offset, which is located substantially at the end of the variable pitch screw, said carriages are again hooked to the transfer chain, the hood regaining its initial position, while the lot of products is taken over by a second chain provided with means for holding said lots for their boxing.
In one particular embodiment which permit
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Moon Daniel
Societe A.P.I.
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