Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor arrangement for selecting among plural sources or... – With selection responsive to means containing or introducing...
Patent
1997-10-10
1999-03-23
Terrell, William E.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor arrangement for selecting among plural sources or...
With selection responsive to means containing or introducing...
1985023, 1984701, 1983495, B65G 4300
Patent
active
058847472
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a method and to an arrangement of the kind defined in the preamble of the following independent method Claim and independent apparatus Claim.
The invention thus relates to a method and to an arrangement for identifying and finding the grippers in a gripping conveyor in the transportation of printed products. The method and arrangement enable a check to be kept on a particular product in any of the grippers and to enable actuation of the product as it is conveyed by the conveyor.
Gripping conveyors provide a convenient possibility of keeping an account of a product, such as a newspaper or like product, during its transportation, for instance as it is conveyed from the station in which the newspaper is gripped by a gripper on the conveyor, through a first treatment station and to a second treatment station which may be a laying-off station in which a newspaper bundle is formed. In this regard it is possible to measure the conveyor distance from the point at which the product was gripped to the point at which the gripper shall be opened at the laying-off station. This distance can be measured as a multiple of the gripper spacing on the conveyor chain. Thus, after the moment at which a gripper grips an individual product, it is possible to calculate in the gripping station a number of grippers that correspond to said multiple and then open a gripper that is located at the laying-off station with the hope of laying-off the individual product that was newly gripped in the gripping station.
This operating method, however, assumes that the gripper conveyor chain has a relatively short length and has a relatively high stability and that the grippers are spaced relatively far apart so as to prevent the "elastic" variation in length of the chain section located between the gripping position and the gripper opening station becoming troublesome. There is a risk of erroneous interpretation when the changes in length of the gripper chain between the stations is able to reach the same order of magnitude as the nominal gripper spacing.
It is possible theoretically to provide each gripper with a code and to read-off the codes at the stations concerned, so that the identity of each gripper can be recognized in each station. This is not possible in practice, however, among other things because of the large number of grippers concerned, all of which must be tracked, and because the gripper flow rate along the conveyor may be as high as twenty grippers per second. The practical difficulties involved in reading the codes correctly in the environments that prevail will be readily understood.
Consequently, the known technique has been directed towards the development of gripping conveyor chains that are as inelastic as possible. However, it is difficult to provide a chain that has a desired low degree of elasticity when the spacing between the grippers becomes shorter and when conveying distances from one gripping station to a laying-off station for instance, are relatively large. This is particularly true when considering all of the relative influences that can occur, such as the phenomenon of thermal expansion, the influence of forces in combination with the modulus of elasticity of the chain materials, the wear on the chain pivots, tolerances in the length of the chain links and the spacing of said links, and so on.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a technique which will enable a given gripper that has gripped a particular product at a first station along the conveyor for instance to be positively and reliably identified with the aid of simple means, so as to enable said product to be actuated or treated at a second station along said conveyor, wherein said actuation or treatment of the product may comprise laying-off the product at a given laying-off station among several mutually separated stations, even though said second station is located far from the first station and even if the gripper spacing is small or the gripper chain has an unfavourable elastic behav
REFERENCES:
patent: 3373623 (1968-03-01), Gutting
patent: 3696946 (1972-10-01), Hunter et al.
patent: 4274783 (1981-06-01), Eineichner et al.
Bergsten Jan Olof
Sandstedt H.ang.kan
Schon Lars
Deuble Mark
Idab Wamac AB
Terrell William E.
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