Classifying – separating – and assorting solids – Sorting special items – and certain methods and apparatus for... – Condition responsive means controls separating means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-13
2002-02-19
Valenza, Joseph E. (Department: 3651)
Classifying, separating, and assorting solids
Sorting special items, and certain methods and apparatus for...
Condition responsive means controls separating means
C198S370100, C198S370120, C198S347200, C198S432000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06347709
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119 of co-pending German patent application number 198 41 508.7 entitled “Verfahren zur Übergabe von einzelnen Packstücken von einer Abnahmestelle an eine Stapelbildungsstelle sowie Vorrichtung zur Durchführung des Verfahrens”, filed on Sep. 14, 1998.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to a method of transferring packing units from a receiving station to a stack building station. The invention also relates to a transfer apparatus for transferring packing units in a plurality of rows and in a plurality of tracks.
The method and the apparatus may be especially used to convey packing units in the form of blisters being filled with tablets from a press at the end of a thermoforming machine as receiving station to a stack building station being arranged at the entrance of a cartoning machine.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A one track method and a corresponding one track apparatus are known from the German Patent Application No. DE 36 17 259 A1. The end of a first packing machine serves as receiving station, and the entrance of a second packing machine serves as stack building station. A conveying device including rotors is arranged between the two packing machines, the rotors including three or four arms being movable in a clocked manner. The arms include suction elements, gripping elements or the like, and they each take over one packing unit at the receiving station. They pass the packing unit to the other rotors until the packing unit is inserted into the stack unit of the second packing machine at the stack building station. The two packing machines work at the same cycle, so that both packing machines simutaneously fulfil one cycle no matter whether or not a packing unit of desired properties is passed on. The packing system includes a device with which it is possible to remove undesired packages and to insert a desired package in the stream of material in the empty space. For this reason, an extra supply unit is allocated to the last rotor of the conveying device. At the beginning of a working cycle, a plurality of packages of desired properties is inserted into the extra supply unit, and the packages are stored therein. The extra supply unit can be automatically filled up to a predetermined minimum number of packing units of desired properties. During the operation of the system, the extra supply unit is filled up as soon as the predetermined minimum number of packing units is not reached any more. Although the transfer apparatus has a one track design, a relatively great minimum number of packing units of desired properties have to be stored in the extra supply unit. Usually, the packing units of desired properties to be stored first in the extra supply unit remain stored until the end of the packing cycle. When the extra supply unit is being filled, the second packing machine keeps on processing in a clocked manner, so that gaps may occur at the stack building station of the second packing machine.
A method and an apparatus for transferring packing units in a plurality of rows and in a plurality of tracks are known from the Otto Haensel GmbH leaflet “High-Performance Thermoforming Line CP-12 And P-4”, printed May 1987. The receiving station, the conveying device and at least the stack building unit of the following machine have a two track design, so that under normal conditions two packing units run through the system side by side in a clocked manner, and two packing units simultaneously arrive at the stack building unit, and they are collected side by side. The number of packing units in the two stacks usually increases uniformly. In case of an empty space in the region of one of the two tracks, there is a cycle in which only one packing unit is passed on to the stack building unit. Consequently, the number of packing units in one of the stacks is increased by one, whereas the number of packing units in the other stack remains unchanged. It is especially undesired to achieve stacks of different heights since this does not allow for the desired clocked processing of the stacks in the following machine. With this known apparatus, it is possible to remove packing units of undesired properties. Nevertheless, the object to achieve stacks of packing units of same height at the stack building station cannot be attained. To solve this problem, it is known from the above mentioned leaflet to allocate one extra supply unit for each track to the rotor of the conveying device. The extra supply units may be prefilled with packing units of desired properties to later fill empty spaces. The packing units of desired properties to compensate empty spaces remain in the extra supply unit for a rather long period of time until an empty space occurs. Thus, during this long period of time in which the packing units are stored in the extra supply unit, the properties of the packing units may change with respect to the other packing units of desired properties being conveyed through the system. For example, the deflection of the packages may change or packing units coming from other producing processes may have other properties. Thus, it is difficult to insert die packing units of different properties into one single carton. A change of charges or a change of format also makes it difficult to combine the packing units of different properties in one stack. The extra supply units only fulfil their function if a predetermined number of stored packing units is located in the extra supply unit.
From the European Patent Application No. EP 0 806 361 A1 an apparatus for depositing pairs of packing units in a carton is known. The packing units, for example bags being filled with potato chips and being sealed, are produced in one track, and they are partitioned in an non-described fashion to two tracks by a conveying device. At the same time, packing units of undesired properties are determined and removed. Empty spaces in the two tracks are prevented. Packing units of undesired properties are not replaced by stored packing units, but following packing units of desired properties are inserted in the empty space of the packing unit of undesired properties. The packing units of desired properties in the two tracks are banked, and they are further conveyed when a certain number of packing units is present in front of the bank position. In this way, two packing units of desired properties are inserted in one single common carton.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Briefly described, the present invention provides a method of transferring packing units from a receiving station to a stack building station, the method including the steps of delivering the packing units to the receiving station in a plurality of rows and in a plurality of tracks, accepting the packing units in a plurality of rows and in a plurality of tracks at a transfer apparatus, removing all packing units of desired properties from a first row not only including packing units of desired properties, storing the at least one packing unit of desired properties; and positioning the at least one stored packing unit of desired properties in a row following to the first row, so that only rows of packing units of desired properties are collected at the stack building station.
The present invention is generally based on the idea to convey the packing units arriving at the receiving station in a plurality of tracks and in a plurality of rows further on to a transfer apparatus still in a plurality of rows and in a plurality of tracks. The packing units may be observed at the receiving station, or in the region where the packing units are conveyed through the transfer apparatus to detect an empty space. Such an empty space may either be an empty blister or a blister of other undesired properties. For example, the blister may not be completely filled with the material. In all these cases, it is about a packing unit of undesired properties that has already been removed, or that will be removed. It is clear that a packing unit of undesired properti
Biehl Johann
Gaus Dieter
Kaplan Horst
Knüppel Jörg
Niessner Eugen
Kloeckner Medipak GmbH
Valenza Joseph E.
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice
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