Material or article handling – Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into – within,... – Stack forming apparatus
Patent
1993-05-24
1996-01-16
Werner, Frank E.
Material or article handling
Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into, within,...
Stack forming apparatus
414754, 4147903, 220571, 198395, 193 47, 901 47, B65F 108
Patent
active
054842549
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This application is a 371 of PCT/EP92/01794 filed Aug. 7, 1992.
This invention relates to a cup return automat with a cup insertion chamber and a cup collecting chamber.
Cup return automats should provide an incentive for used cups, especially drinking cups, to be collected and passed on to an organized waste disposal facility and if desired waste recycling. Accordingly, the new cups are dispensed in return for a deposit, which is refunded by cup return automats on insertion of the used cup. In order to prevent misuse, the cup is provided with a suitable marking. The acceptance of the used cup by the cup return automat, or at least the return of deposit, only then takes place when the cup is actually one with the right marking and the marking is recognized as correct by the cup return automat.--In order to be able to implement such a disposal system in practice, it must have as simple and inexpensive a construction as possible with at the same time the largest possible collection capacity for the cups, so that the installation of such automats is within one's means and justifiable in cost terms and the work of emptying and servicing the automats does not have to be carried out on a too frequent rota.--The invention is based on the object of providing a cup return automat of the kind initially referred to fulfilling these requirements.
The cup return automat according to the invention meeting this object is characterized by a stacking shaft arranged over the cup collection chamber with a reception opening provided at the upper shaft end for the cups to be stacked in the stacking shaft and with a device for ejecting the formed stack of cups into the cup collection chamber, and by a transfer device provided between the cup insertion chamber and the stacking shaft which only allows any cup received in the cup insertion chamber to pass into the receiving opening of the stacking shaft when in the cup orientation permitting the cup stacking and with the cup opening turned downwards.
The advantage obtained with the invention consists in that the cups do not fill up the cup collection chamber in complete disorder and then with a correspondingly great space requirement, but are first stacked in space-saving manner, so that there results an optimally small space requirement for a correspondingly large number of cups, which cup return automat also has a very large collection capacity. The stacking operation is however only possible when each cup already has that orientation which it will finally have in the stack. The transfer device preceding the stacking shaft takes care of this, which according to the invention also finds use in allowing only cups standing on their heads and accordingly with a down-turned cup opening to be stacked, so that residual contents possibly remaining the cups run out and can be caught.
The prior orientation of the cups required for the stacking operation can then be implemented in an especially simple manner if use is made of the circumstances in which the cups are provided with a marking for the purposes of the return of deposit already mentioned. An embodiment of the invention making use of this and therefore particularly simple and preferred is characterized in that the transfer device comprises a guide cylinder receiving the cups in an orientation substantially parallel to the axis and open at the top and bottom ends, and which at the top adjoins an opening for passage of the cups provided in the bottom of the cup insertion chamber and at the bottom opens above the reception opening of the stacking shaft, further in that the guide cylinder is provided with a catch member which is movable in controllable manner between two states, where it retains the cup in the guide cylinder in one state and enables it to fall through in the other state, and in that the guide cylinder is fitted with a sensor for testing a marking provided on the cup wall, wherein the catch member and the sensor are so arranged relative to one another, that the marking can only be detected by the sensor with a downward
REFERENCES:
patent: 127184 (1872-05-01), Mulcahy
patent: 3232453 (1966-02-01), Rukavina
patent: 3313943 (1967-04-01), Sager
patent: 3708679 (1973-01-01), Stock et al.
patent: 4054196 (1977-10-01), Schaufele et al.
Partial translation of French Patent Application 2,580,418, dated Apr. 16, 1985.
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