Article dispensing – With discharge assistant – With size adjusting means
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-11
2002-08-27
Noland, Kenneth W. (Department: 3651)
Article dispensing
With discharge assistant
With size adjusting means
C053S246000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06439426
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a device for feeding tablets and the like, in a packaging machine.
The present invention is advantageously used for feeding and orderly placing tablets or pills, preferably in pharmaceutical field, into respective blisters of a blister band in a blister packaging machine, to which the following description will refer, while keeping a more general scope.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Disc-like or oblong tablets or pills are fed to a packaging machine by a feeding device usually including a vibrating container or a basin, which contains a mass of tablets moving in a circular movement, substantially continuous.
A part of the horizontal flat wall constituting the vibrating basin bottom, features semi-circular ribs, which define channels for feeding and orienting the tablets. Each of the channels opens in the region of a relative slot made in the bottom wall and communicates with an upper end of a corresponding vertical tubular duct, through which the tablets go downwards.
The lower end of the vertical tubular duct is situated over the blister band made of heat-formable material, which moves inside the blister packaging machine.
Therefore, along the tubular channels, groups of tablets are formed which go down one after another toward respective blisters of the blister band, so as to fill the blisters.
The cross section of the tubular channels allow to transport tablets of a determined thickness, and consequently, the channels must be changed with others, of a different cross section, each time the packaging machine must be fed with tablets of a different size or form.
At present, the substitution of the tubular channels is relatively expensive and causes a prolonged stop of the packaging machine, which results in a considerable productivity reduction.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to propose a device for feeding tablets, which avoids the above mentioned problem.
A device for feeding tablets and the like in a packaging machine, obtained according to the present invention includes a vibrating container, which contains a mass of tablets and features a bottom wall, a part of which has tablets feeding channels communicating with relative slots made in said bottom wall; and conveying means for conveying said tablets along a predetermined feeding path and releasing the tablets into respective blisters of a blister band, which moves inside the packaging machine, said conveying means communicating with said slots, the device being characterized in that said conveying means include a plate featuring at least two grooves, arranged one beside the other, and a covering element, coupled with said plate, so as to be adjustable with respect to said plate and equipped with transversal wings, each of which is situated inside a respective groove of the plate, so as to define a respective channel of a predetermined transversal dimension for conveying the tablets; adjusting means being coupled with said conveying means, for adjusting, while the tablets feeding is stopped, the positions of said wings with respect to the grooves in order to change the transversal dimensions of said conveying channels.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3775941 (1973-12-01), Bross
patent: 5802804 (1998-09-01), Esposti et al.
Coleman Sudol Sapone P.C.
I.M.A. Industria Macchine
Noland Kenneth W.
Sapone William J.
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