Tobacco – Cigar or cigarette making – Tobacco feeding
Patent
1983-04-25
1985-04-16
Millin, V.
Tobacco
Cigar or cigarette making
Tobacco feeding
131108, 19 97, 19112, 19114, A24C 539
Patent
active
045109494
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention is particularly concerned with feeding tobacco, especially in a cigarette making machine, but it is more generally concerned with feeding particulate material for any purpose. In this connection the expression "particulate material" is intended to include fibers used in the textile industry, as well as material such as cut tobacco.
A cigarette making machine commonly includes a pinned feed roller which partly defines a space into which tobacco is fed and from which the roller is arranged to pick up tobacco in order to feed a metered stream of tobacco towards a part of the machine in which the tobacco is formed into a cigarette filler stream. A second pinned roller (termed a "refuser roller") is set close to the feed roller so that the envelope containing the points of the pins on the refuser roller is slightly spaced from the envelope of the pin points on the feed roller. The refuser roller thus brushes back excess tobacco which would otherwise be carried forward by the feed roller, thus ensuring that the feed roller carries a substantially metered stream of tobacco to be formed into a cigarette filler stream.
According to the present invention, the feed roller or other feed conveyor of an apparatus for feeding a metered stream of tobacco or other fibrous material has relatively high pins (i.e., extending further towards the refusing means) which are substantially evenly distributed among relatively low pins or lie in obliquely extending rows between rows of relatively low pins.
This invention reduces the tendency for the tobacco or other material to be broken during the metering process.
In one preferred arrangement the pins on the feed roller lie in rows extending axially and circumferentially with respect to the roller, alternate pins in each axially-extending row being high and low, and likewise in each circumferentially-extending row. Thus the high pins lie in helically-extending rows between which there are similar helically extending rows of low pins; and the high pins are also evenly distributed.
Alternatively, the high pins may lie in broad helically-extending bands, each band being generally formed by a number of parallel helically-extending rows of pins, and the remainder of the pins being relatively low. There may, for example, be helically-extending bands inclined in opposite senses so as to form a herring-bone pattern.
It is important that the high pins should be evenly distributed and/or lie in helical rows (or oblique rows in the case of a band conveyor). If, for example, the feed roller had non-helical bands (i.e. multiple rows) of high pins alternating with bands of low pins, the total tobacco feed rate would fluctuate cyclically.
All the pins are preferably inclined to the surface of the feed roller by the same angle, for example 40 degrees; that is to say, the angle between the axis of each pin and a tangent to the drum at the root of the pin is 40 degrees. The tips of the high and low pins may respectively lie at distances of 6.7 mm and 4.7 mm from the surface of the roller; in general, the height of the high pins is preferably at least 30% greater than that of the low pins.
Feed rollers used in cigarette making machines commonly have pins. However, especially in the case of feeds for materials other than tobacco, it is possible to use carding in the form of pointed parts which are not strictly pins; such pointed parts are intended to be included in references to "pins" in this context.
Examples of cigarette making machines according to this invention are shown in the accompanying drawings. In these drawings:
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic view of part of a cigarette making machine in the direction of the axis of the feed roller;
FIG. 2 is a view on an enlarged scale of part of the feed roller;
FIG. 3 is a flat-developed view of part of the surface of the feed roller on the same scale as FIG. 2;
FIG. 4 is a flat-developed view of part of the surface of an alternative feed roller; and
FIG. 5 is a flat-developed view of part of the surface of another alternative feed roller.
FIG
REFERENCES:
patent: 485272 (1892-11-01), Groom
patent: 1630158 (1927-05-01), Allen
patent: 3196880 (1965-07-01), Pinkham
patent: 3996943 (1976-12-01), Hinzmann
patent: 3996944 (1976-12-01), Hinzmann
Preston Edward G.
Stewart David B.
Millin V.
Molins PLC
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