Tobacco – Cigar or cigarette making – Molding or forming
Patent
1987-08-20
1990-05-29
Millin, V.
Tobacco
Cigar or cigarette making
Molding or forming
131 844, 131280, 83 72, 83 76, 83298, 493 45, A24C 528, A24C 531
Patent
active
049287133
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention is concerned with the manufacture of cigarettes and other rods of the cigarette industry, including filter rods. it will, however, for convenience be described in terms of cigarettes.
Out U.S. Pat. No. No. 4,463,766 describes an invention involving the use of separate electronically-synchronised drives in a cigarette making machine. Reference is directed to that specification in its entirety.
According to one aspect of this invention, a rod cut-off for a cigarette making machine comprises a cutting device having a first drive, a ledger for supporting the rod during cutting and having a second drive separate from the first drive, means for sychronising (preferably electronically) the first and second drives during normal operation, and means for mechanically displacing the ledger or cutting device (preferably the former) from the normal position in which it co-operates with the other member to perform rod cutting, the displacement being arranged to occur while the two drives are being brought into sychronisation, this being normally while the machine is being accelerated from start.
This not only avoids the need for gearing or other mechanical drive means between the cutting device and the ledger, but also facilitates rod length changes necessitating tilting of the cutting device with respect to the rod. An example of a cutting device requiring such tilting is described in our patent GB1238458.
As described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,463,766, the drive to the cutting device is preferably a "master", the ledger drive being electronically "slaved" to the master.
The ledger is preferably of the type having only rotating components; ie, as opposed to ledgers comprising a reciprocating or oscillating arm. The simplest example of such a ledger (shown in GB1238458) is a wheel having a shaped periphery constantly engaging the rod during normal operation and formed with radial slits through which a cutting knife (or one of a number of knives on the cutting device) passes while cutting the rod. Other examples are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,479,913, 3,650,169, 3,850,065 and 3,956,955.
This invention has wider implications, particularly in regard to devices in machines of the cigarette industry which can benefit from the use of separate drives but need to be synchronised to allow appropriate engagement or co-operation of respective parts thereof.
According to a second aspect of this invention, a machine of the cigarette industry including two devices which co-operate during use and have hitherto been driven by a common motor via appropriate gears or other mechanical drive means is characterised by having separate drives for the two devices, means for electronically synchronising the two drives during normal operation, and means for displacing one of the devices from the other until the drives have been brought into synchronisation.
An example of an apparatus to which this second aspect of the invention may be applied is the part of a filter tipping machine used for cutting a continuous web of tipping paper into predetermined lengths. An example of such apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,372,327. In that example, the drum serving an an anvil for the cutting knives on the cutting head may have a drive separate from the cutting head. Displacement of the cutting head from the drum (as described in that specification) may be effected automatically when the machine is first started, restoration of the normal cutting position of the cutting head occurring once the drives have been synchronised and tipping paper is being fed through the apparatus.
This invention may also be applied to apparatus outside of the cigarette machine industry.
An example of a cigarette rod cut-off according to this invention is shown in the accompanying diagrammatic drawing.
In the drawing, a ledger 10 is shown diagrammatically to comprise a vertical-axis wheel 12 carrying a number of 30 circumferentially spaced rod-supporting parts 14 (or a continuous outer part of the same cross section) formed with grooves 16 of semicircular cross
REFERENCES:
patent: 4372327 (1983-02-01), Dyett et al.
patent: 4463766 (1984-08-01), Arthur et al.
Millin V.
Molins PLC
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