Material or article handling – Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into – within,... – Unstacking apparatus
Patent
1997-07-24
1999-11-02
Krizek, Janice L.
Material or article handling
Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into, within,...
Unstacking apparatus
221277, B65G 5906
Patent
active
059758384
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a device for separating and conveying sticks, and more particularly to the use of such a device in an apparatus for inserting sticks in ice-cream bodies.
BACKGROUND ART
Danish Patent Application No. 1832/86 discloses an apparatus of the kind referred to. The apparatus according to Danish Patent Application No. 1832/86 is intended to be able to function even with deformed sticks. Experience has shown, however, that when using high rates of delivery of sticks, occurring in intermittent operation, high demands are placed on the construction of the carrier, in this case constituting a belt with pockets, into which the sticks are to be pressed singly from the stack of sticks. Thus, the sticks are to be pushed directly into the pockets under the action of a force applied through the stack. For this reason, this force will be continuously exerted against the belt, causing wear of the latter. As it is also necessary for the pockets formed in the belt to have a depth not exceeding the thickness of a stick in order to be able to destack one stick at a time, problems may arise in making the pockets hold sticks that are not quite straight.
Another example of the prior art is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,478,703, in which a belt is likewise used for destacking sticks singly from a stack under constant pressure, and in which use is also made of support plates at the part of the belt, in which the sticks are conveyed. In this example, the belt is adapted to run back and forth between the positions for receiving and delivering the sticks. Thus, even with this construction, there are problems related to the demands placed upon the construction of the belt and to the operating rates that may be achieved.
A general problem when using chains for destacking sticks is that these chains are subject to wear, causing particles to be transferred to the sticks and hence to the ice-cream bodies, especially when using chains of plastic material. For this reason it will be necessary to make the chains from wear-resisting material, typically stainless steel, in order to reduce the transfer of particles to a level compatible with the increasingly strict requirements relating to transfer of particles to foodstuffs, e.g. from the so-called HACCP directive coming into force in the European union in January 1996. There is, however, a drawback with using metal chains, in that the metal chains are complicated and costly to manufacture and also relatively heavy, thus reducing the operating rate that can be achieved.
Further, from DE-OS-1,601,078 it is known to single-out sticks from a number of sticks in a bin by using a chain conveying the sticks to an inserting device or a buffer store. When a buffer store is used, the sticks are periodically lifted up from the chains into the buffer store, in which the sticks are stacked by means of a wheel provided with teeth. In contrast: when the sticks are delivered from the buffer store, they will abut against the chain as in the above examples and be destacked into empty pockets on the chain by means of a pivoted rod and a stationary abutment co-operating with the pockets in the chain. For this purpose, the pockets are set at an angle. This arrangement results in a complicated construction with many moving parts, that are difficult to clean and with which it is difficult to achieve high operating rates.
A further example is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,953,506, in which the sticks are destacked using a piston rod pushing a stick out of the stack in the longitudinal direction of the stick, the latter being pushed out through an opening larger than the thickness of one stick but smaller than the thickness of two sticks. This construction requires a large abutment pressure from the stack, and also requires a strong force to eject the sticks in the longitudinal direction. At the same time, there is a risk of a stick getting jammed, which may happen when the piston rod, being thinner than the sticks, functions like a chisel and splinters the stick. Furthe
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Krizek Janice L.
NTC Engineering APS
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