Laser marking of foliage and cigars

Details Laser marking of foliage and cigars Laser marking of foliage and cigars

1999-02-17

2001-01-30

Evans, Geoffrey S. (Department: 1725)

Electric heating

Metal heating

By arc

C131S360000, C219S121690

Reexamination Certificate

active

06180914

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for affecting a design on a leaf or leaf wrapped product (e.g., cigars, cigarillos, cigarettes) and the end product resulting therefrom. The method and apparatus for affecting a design on a leaf or leaf wrapped product employs laser energy to etch the surface of the product or cutting through the product to produce an ornamental design and/or to represent text to form a unique environmentally friendly end product which conveys a message, greeting, expression, identification, information, communication, inscription, design, artwork, digital image, or the like, directly on the end product.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many industries have a need for marking items. Such marking may include coding for inventory control, labeling, instructions and/or identification. Floral industries have the same need to mark potted and cut plants and flowers. Floral industries have a further need to include various greetings when delivering plants and flowers for special occasions. The floral industry currently utilizes standard marking practices on the containers or pots such as direct inking or adhesive labels. Plant inserts are also often provided for pricing, inventory control, growing directions. With respect to floral arrangements, usually a small card is included when the arrangement is delivered attached to a plastic holder inserted into the vase or container. The card usually includes a greeting, such as “Happy Birthday.”
Cigars are also often given as greetings and for congratulations, birth announcements and the like. Cigars used for this purpose typically have a special greeting printed on the band or on a plastic/paper wrapper with the cigar inside.
Some industries, albeit not the floral industry, have begun using laser energy to mark items. Such methods are provided by: Ravellat (U.S. Pat. No. 5,021,631), Piliero (U.S. Pat. No. 5,120,928), Ito et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,198,843), and Drouillard et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,660,747). While these devices use laser energy to mark items, they typically are used to mark nonsensitive nonliving items with simple bar codes or alphanumeric characters. The items marked are not flexible or delicate, and, therefore, concerns in being able to adequately mark products in the floral industry using a laser are not addressed by such patents. Similarly, such patents do not address the concerns for marking leaf wrapped products such as cigars, including its cylindrical form factor.
There remains a need for a method to mark/cut thin, flexible and delicate materials without destroying the item itself.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention includes a method of affecting a design on a leaf or leaf wrapped product with laser energy by cutting and/or marking and the end product resulting therefrom. Implementation of this method is by placing the foliage/cigar in the path of the laser energy to create the design, affecting relative motion between the laser beam and foliage/cigar, and modulating the intensity of the laser energy. Alternatively, the process can be accomplished by inserting an opaque metal stencil (preferably copper) machined with the desired design and focusing optics between a stationary laser beam and foliage/cigar. This method burns the design into the foliage/cigar with a short time duration burst of laser energy.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for transferring leaves into the marking/cutting field of the laser source wherein the leaf is held stationery with a clamping fixture and/or vacuum during the laser processing. Additionally, the conveyance system incorporates a method to allow laser energy, after passing through the leaf, to be dissipated on the aluminum plate used to support the leaf without damaging the conveyor belt. Further, the conveyance system incorporates sensing to detect the presence or absence of leaves in the marking/cuttingzone. Moreover, this method provides for the inclusion of pre-laser processing operations and/or post-laser processing operations on the foliage to improve contrast or other product enhancements not achievable exclusively with laser marking/cutting. These processes could include forced air drying and the application of surface chemicals, thermally sensitive pigments, and preservative agents.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method for automatically transferring leaves stacked in a container onto the conveyor. This method incorporates techniques for identifying when all leaves have been removed from the carton.
Another object of the invention to provide a method for interacting with the machine operator through menu driven screens on an operator interface panel and through a visual and audible beacon.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method for efficiently encoding foliage designs created in off the shelf graphic design packages. The encoded foliage designs (design profiles) can be incorporated into a design database that allows an operator to select a specific design through the operator interface panel.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method for providing designers of laser altered foliage with the hardware and software tools needed to develop new product designs and translate these designs into efficient formats for use by production equipment.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method for quality control via machine vision inspection of the leaf prior to and after laser processing. This method can accurately determine the position and orientation of a leaf in the marking/cutting field and adjust design profile to optimize placement of the design onto the leaf. This method can also provide feedback to the operator for quality control purposes and be used to adjust laser power to improve product quality.
A further object is to provide a method for improving the productivity of a manually loaded system by means of a dual station, dual position foliage shuttle. This method provides an operator with the capability to unload a leaf from or load a leaf into a clamp fixture located outside of the laser field of view thus allowing the concurrent processing of a leaf previously loaded into the alternate clamp fixture.
Another object is to provide a method which gives operators the exact location where a design will be marked and/or cut onto a leaf during the leaf loading process. This method improves the uniformity of the end product and improves throughput of the system by allowing fast, accurate loading of leaves. This method utilizes a clear, polycarbonate template onto which a design has been etched. The design template is positioned over the leaf clamp during manual loading and is automatically displaced out of the laser field of view during processing.
A further object of the invention is to provide an automated system for marking cigars by utilizing a conveyor with the cigar in a VEE notch as well as full circumferential marking of cigars.


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Advertisement Media for Lumonics' Lazermark 960, no publication date.

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