Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor system for arranging or rearranging stream of items – By queueing items from quantity source of items into stream...
Reexamination Certificate
1997-04-04
2001-07-31
Valenza, Jospeh E. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor system for arranging or rearranging stream of items
By queueing items from quantity source of items into stream...
Reexamination Certificate
active
06267224
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a package handling device for separating and orienting flexible pouched articles. In particular, the present invention provides an apparatus for mechanically separating and orientating pouched articles for individually inserting each pouched article into a container such as a bag or box.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many products are packaged in flexible pouches or sealed bags or envelopes. Typically, these pouches are of a rectangular shape and contain food products such as seasonings, salad dressings, cereals, and candies. For example, a caesar salad kit includes a foil pouch of salad dressing, a cellophane pouch of croutons, a foil envelope of seasonings, all packaged in a cellophane bag of chopped romaine lettuce. However, each of these items must be hand sorted and manually placed within the cellophane bag for sealing. The reliance on manual labour increases food packaging time and costs.
There does not exist an automated machine which can separate and orient pouched product for insertion into a recipient container. The flexibility of the pouch prevents effective sorting and handling. As a pouch is handled, it changes shape and clumps together making it difficult to separate the pouched products and then orient them so that each can be inserted into a recipient container one at a time.
There are prior art devices which separate and orient hard-surfaced objects such as wooden flat holder sticks or nuts and bolts. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,501, Lowrance, provides an automatic feeder apparatus for automatically inserting flat holder sticks into individual food products such as ice cream bars and wieners. This device uses a series of agitator rollers having a plurality of circumferentially spaced longitudinal-shaped flutes which agitates the unaligned sticks and discharges the sticks onto a set of ramps to slide into a slot. This device would not be suitable for flexible items since the flexible items would tend to clump together and be delivered in bunches of two or more.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The disadvantages of the prior art may be overcome by providing a novel apparatus for the separation and orientation of pouched articles.
According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus for separating flexible packages having a first stage which has an inclined conveyor having a lower end for receiving flexible packages and an upper end. The inclined conveyor has an inclination sufficient for causing an overlying flexible package to slide relatively to an underlying flexible package as the flexible packages travel from the lower end to the upper end. A drum is rotatably mounted for receiving the flexible packages from the upper end. The drum has a plurality of radially extending resilient paddles for successively engaging and carrying the flexible packages as the drum rotates. The successive engagements and rotation vibratingly separate the flexible packages and discharges a stream of substantially separated flexible packages.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus for separating flexible packages having a plurality of stages operably connected together to serially process the flexible packages. Each stage has an inclined conveyor having a lower end for receiving flexible packages and an upper end. The inclined conveyor has an inclination sufficient for causing an overlying flexible package to slide relatively to an underlying flexible package as the flexible packages travel from the lower end to the upper end. A drum is rotatably mounted for receiving the flexible packages from the upper end. The drum has a plurality of radially extending resilient paddles for successively engaging and carrying the flexible packages as the drum rotates. The successive engagements and rotation vibratingly separate the flexible packages and discharges a stream of substantially separated flexible packages.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1669087 (1928-05-01), Hungerford
patent: 2633971 (1953-04-01), Albertoli et al.
patent: 2843254 (1958-07-01), Vaughan
patent: 3162292 (1964-12-01), Lawson
patent: 3184034 (1965-05-01), Stuller et al.
patent: 4593805 (1986-06-01), Huddle
patent: 4660712 (1987-04-01), Braidotti et al.
Imai Jeffrey T.
Valenza Jospeh E.
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