Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor for changing attitude of item relative to conveyed... – By actuating item-holder relative to holder-carrying conveyor
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-05
2002-10-29
Ellis, Christopher P. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor for changing attitude of item relative to conveyed...
By actuating item-holder relative to holder-carrying conveyor
C198S377040, C198S377060, C198S377100, C198S404000, C198S406000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06471036
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED CASES
This application claims the priority of commonly owned German patent application Serial No. 199 20 760.7 filed May 5, 1999. The disclosure of the above-referenced German patent application, as well as that of each U.S. and foreign patent and patent application mentioned in the specification of the present application, is incorporated herein by reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to improvements in methods of and in apparatus for manipulating rod-shaped articles, especially rod-shaped products of the tobacco processing industry. Typical examples of such rod-shaped products are filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos and other filter-tipped smokers' products.
It is customary to mass-produce filter cigarettes in machines or production lines of the type disclosed, for example, in commony owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,008 granted Aug. 4, 1992 to Erwin Oesterling et al. for “METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING FILTER CIGARETTES”. Thus, filter mouthpieces of double unit length are placed between pairs of plain cigarettes of unit length and are secured thereto by so-called uniting bands (one side of each uniting band is coated with a film of a suitable adhesive) each of which is rolled around the entire mouthpiece as well as around the adjacent inner end portions of the respective plain cigarettes. The thus obtained filter cigarettes of double unit length are severed midway across their convoluted uniting bands to thus yield pairs of coaxial filter cigarettes of unit length. The filter mouthpieces of each pair of filter cigarettes of unit length are located next to each other; therefore, one filter cigarette of each pair must be turned around (inverted) end-for-end so that the filter mouthpieces of inverted and non-inverted cigarettes face in the same direction, and the inverted cigarettes are normally placed between the adjacent non-inverted cigarettes to form therewith a single layer or mass flow ready to be fed into a packing machine wherein arrays of, for example, four, five, ten or twenty filter cigarettes are confined in box-shaped containers or packets, e.g., in so-called soft packets or packs or in so-called hinged lid packets or packs.
The apparatus of Oesterling et al. can employ an inverting or turn-around device of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,583,546 granted Jun. 8, 1971 to Gerhard Koop for “APPARATUS FOR INVERTING CIGARETTES OR THE LIKE”. The device of Koop employs a set of four horizontal drum-shaped conveyors and a so-called rotor which is rotatable about a vertical axis and operates between two spaced-apart drum-shaped conveyors to invert successive filter cigarettes of one of two rows of such filter cigarettes through an angle of 180° and to simultaneously move the filter cigarettes of the one row axially so that they can be deposited between successive cigarettes of the (non-inverted) other row. As a rule, the cigarettes are transported in axially parallel flutes at the peripheries of the drum-shaped conveyors and in flutes of discrete holders forming part of the aforementioned rotor.
The turn-around device of Koop constitutes but one of numerous apparatus or units which can be utilized in a filter cigarete making and processing line to invert one of two rows of filter cigarettes of unit length end-for-end preparatory to introduction of filter cigarettes into storage or into a packing machine. For example, German patent No. 11 78 756 discloses an apparatus which employs a rotary drum having pairs of axially parallel peripheral flutes for discrete filter cigarettes of unit length. Initially, the filters of each pair of cigarettes are located next to each other. One flute of each pair is rotatable about an axis which extends radially of the axis of the drum so that the respective filter cigarette of unit length can be turned through an angle of 180° and simultaneously caused to partially overlap the adjacent non-inverted filter cigarettes. Therefore, the just described patented turn-around apparatus must further employ a stationary cam or an analogous device which shifts successive inverted filter cigarettes axially to positions of full overlap with the non-inverted filter cigarettes.
A drawback of the just described patented turn-around apparatus is that it is highly complex and therefore expensive and prone to malfunction. Thus, one flute of each pair of flutes must be mounted on a discrete holder which is rotatable relative to the drum. Moreover, each inverted filter cigarette only partially overlies the adjacent non-inverted filter cigarettes so that it must thereafter be shifted axially by resorting to the aforementioned cam or the like. This renders it necessary to employ a large-diameter drum, and the cam is likely to damage (such as deface and/or deform) the freshly inverted filter cigarettes. Moreover, the speed of rotary movement of indexible flutes cannot exceed a certain value in order to avoid the generation of excessive centrifugal forces which tend to expel the filter cigarettes from their indexible flutes and necessitate the provision of means which attract the filter cigarettes or otherwise retain the filter cigarettes in their respective indexible flutes with a pronounced force which, too, can affect the quality of inverted and axially shifted filter cigarettes.
In accordance with another prior proposal (disclosed in U.K. patent No. 15 38 314), filter cigarettes of unit length are assembled into a mass flow, the mass flow is introduced into a receptacle, and the at least partially filled receptacle is thereupon turned so as to invert the confined filter cigarettes through 180°. The receptacle is thereupon emptied and the thus evacuated (freshly inverted) filter cigarettes of unit length are ready to merge into a mass flow of non-inverted filter cigarettes of unit length. Such proposal also exhibits a number of serious drawbacks. Thus, the introduction of a mass flow of filter cigarettes of unit length into a receptacle, the turning of the receptacle and the evacuation of thus inverted filter cigarettes from the receptacle consume a substantial amount of time so that the receptacle is likely to establish a bottleneck in a production line which turns out filter cigarettes and confines filter cigarettes in packets, e.g., in the aforemetioned soft packets or in the aforementioned hinged lid packets. Moreover, the filter cigarettes are likely to be damaged (such as deformed and/or defaced and/or relieved of tobacco particles) during introduction into, during rotation with and/or during evacuation from the receptacle. Consequently, the utilization of such turn-around devices entails (or can entail) the making of an inordinately large number of rejects which must be segregated from acceptable filter cigarettes prior to introduction into the packing machine.
In accordance with a further prior proposal, the two rows of filter cigarettes which are turned out, for example, in a production line including the apparatus disclosed in the '008 patent to Oesterling et al. (i.e., wherein the mouthpieces of filter cigarettes of one row are adjacent the mouthpieces of coaxial filter cigarettes of the other row) are moved axially and apart from each other by resorting to a suitable drum-shaped (spreading) conveyor (such as the conveyor
39
shown in FIG. 1 of the '008 patent). The thus manipulated filter cigarettes are transferred onto a conical inverting drum which causes the filter mouthpieces of all cigarettes to face in the same direction prior to transfer onto a further drum for advancement toward a packing machine or to storage.
The just described proposal exhibits the drawback that the production line must embody a spreading conveyor which contributes to the space requirements of the production line, especially to the floor space requirements (namely the so-called footprint). Furthermore, repeated transfer of filter cigarettes from conveyor to conveyor can affect the quality of the processed commodities, e.g., their appearance and/or the density of their tobacco fillers. Moreover,
Deuble Mark A.
Hauni Maschinenbau AG
Kinberg Robert
Venable
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