Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor section – Reciprocating conveying surface
Patent
1997-10-27
1999-08-03
Terrell, William E.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor section
Reciprocating conveying surface
198756, B65G 2724, B65G 2702
Patent
active
059312866
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a driving unit for vibration conveyors as used in a variety of embodiments for conveying small parts. They work on the principle that a spiral or circular-shaped track is made to vibrate, with the motion generated essentially comprising both a horizontal and a vertical component. The material to be conveyed may be small parts made from highly varied materials that need to be e.g. sorted, inspected and filled into drums as part of a production process. Sorting pots driven in this way cause the small parts inside to move around the edge of the sorting pot, with only those small particles that find themselves in a certain position being able to negotiate a particular sorting passage, whilst the others fall back into the pot. Another special version of a vibration conveyor serves to simultaneously smooth and remove dust from pharmaceutical products such as tablets or pills. EP 0 549 533 Al describes a tablet smoother of this type, as used immediately after the tablet presses in the tablet production process. It conveys the tablets upwards, simultaneously smoothing and dedusting them as it does so. This tablet smoother has a helical track which runs along the inside wall of a vertical jacketed pipe and can be made to vibrate with a horizontal and vertical component. This vibration jerks the tablets up along the helical track. A vacuum device is used to suck away the dust from the area above the helical track. The vibration is generated by an electromagnet mounted on a base, by which means a magnetic vibration plate disposed at a distance from the base, to which plate the helical track is directly and securely attached, can be attracted against the elastic force of leaf springs disposed at an oblique angle to the winding axis of the electromagnet between the base and the vibration plate.
One disadvantage of the drive of this vibration conveyor and tablet smoother is that the base of the entire device constitutes the complementary vibration mass and hence is unavoidably made to vibrate as well, and this vibration has to be absorbed by rubber feet. The same is also true of sorting pots driven in this way. Because vibration conveyors of this type have no part that remains at rest when the unit is operated, the entire housing vibrates as well, as does the stand, the base, and indeed every other part on them. Hence the energy consumed is not only spent on making those parts vibrate which are actually meant to vibrate; other additional components are also unavoidably made to vibrate although there is no need at all for them to do so, which has a negative effect on the efficiency of the vibration conveyor. Because the base necessarily functions as the complementary vibration mass it has to be of a relatively heavy design to be able to safely support the vibration conveyor and the rubber feet have to be capable of absorbing its vibration so that the entire vibration conveyor stands stationary on the ground when operated.
It is the task of this invention to provide a driving unit for a vibration conveyor for conveying small parts, which converts the energy consumed more efficiently than conventional constructions in that less mass is made to vibrate and in that the vibration conveyor is also provided with resting parts which can support any required additional devices that need not, or are not intended to vibrate as well.
This task is solved by a driving unit for conveying small parts according to the preamble of claim 1 that is distinguished by the characterizing features of said claim 1.
In comparison with conventional constructions, a driving unit of this type is compacter and only consumes about half as much electrical energy to achieve the same effect as the conventional driving unit in the construction described in EP 0 549 533 Al. The base on which it stands is no longer exposed to any vibration and additional devices that remain absolutely still, i.e. do not vibrate when the unit is in operation can be mounted on it. In comparison with a conventional construction, a driving unit of this
Bower K W
Kramer AG Basserdorf
Schindler Edwin D.
Terrell William E.
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