Material or article handling – Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into – within,... – Unstacking apparatus
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-01
2003-10-14
Kramer, Dean J. (Department: 3652)
Material or article handling
Apparatus for moving intersupporting articles into, within,...
Unstacking apparatus
C414S788000, C414S797500, C414S797900
Reexamination Certificate
active
06632067
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a pallet dispenser that can receive a vertical stack of skewed or misaligned pallets in an interior of the pallet dispenser and align the pallets as they are sequentially dispensed from the pallet dispenser onto a conveyor below the pallet dispenser. More specifically, the present invention pertains to a pallet dispenser that can be quickly manually changed over to accommodate pallets of different sizes and vertically dispense the pallets one by one onto a conveyor below the pallet dispenser.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are many different known types and sizes of pallet constructions that are employed in supporting goods when being shipped. The pallets are designed to be lifted by conventional forklift trucks and provide a base for large goods or for large numbers of goods that would be difficult to be manually lifted and transported. By supporting large, heavy goods or large numbers of goods on a pallet, the goods can be easily transported, for example from a loading dock to a truck bed or vice versa, by a conventional forklift truck.
Most conventional pallets are constructed of wood and/or plastic and are intended to be reused several times. Emptied pallets that are to be reused are usually stacked upon each other in a storage area until they are needed. Often the stacking of the used pallets is done manually as the pallets are emptied, resulting in skewing or misalignment of the vertically stacked pallets in many instances. What is meant by skewing or misalignment is that the sides of the pallets in the vertical stack are not aligned and adjacent pallets are staggered or slightly turned relative to each other.
In pallet dispensers that are employed in combination with conveyor systems, the skewing or misalignment of pallets loaded into the pallet dispenser must be corrected before the dispenser dispenses a pallet onto the conveyor system. This is necessary so that the pallets dispensed onto the conveyor system are properly oriented relative to the conveyors so that goods to be loaded onto the pallets conveyed by the conveyor system are properly positioned on the pallets. For example, in an automated conveyor system that stacks layers of rows of goods on a pallet conveyed through the system, the pallet must first be correctly oriented relative to the conveyor in order to ensure that the layers of rows of goods are properly positioned on the pallet.
To achieve the proper orienting of the pallets dispensed from a pallet dispenser onto a conveyor system, prior art pallet dispensers typically had guide rails at their opposite sides and their fronts and backs that would engage the four sides of a pallet as it is dispensed from a vertical stack of pallets positioned in the interior of the pallet dispenser. The guide rails would engage with the four sides of the pallets as they are dispensed vertically downward through the pallet dispenser and orient the bottom most pallet of the stack just prior to its being dispensed onto the conveyor system below the dispenser.
However, pallets are manufactured in a variety of sizes and primarily in a large size that measures 56″ by 44″ and a small size that measures 48″ by 40″. If a stack of small pallets is loaded into a pallet dispenser whose guide rails have been previously adjusted and set to reorient a stack of large pallets, the guide rails of the pallet dispenser would have to be manually adjusted to reorient the small pallets of the stack of pallets loaded into the pallet dispenser. Additionally, if a stack of large pallets is to be loaded into a pallet dispenser that had been previously adjusted to dispense a stack of small pallets, the guide rails of the pallet dispenser would have to be manually adjusted and reset in order to first receive the stack of large pallets in the interior of the pallet dispenser and then to properly orient the large pallets as they are dispensed from the pallet dispenser. Because prior art pallet dispensers typically would have guide rails on all four sides of the dispenser to engage all four sides of the pallets dispensed vertically downward through the dispenser, adjusting the positions of guide rails to accommodate stacks of different size pallets would require a considerable amount of labor time. This labor time was not only down time for the pallet dispenser as its guide rails are adjusted, but also down time for the entire conveyor system as the system waits for additional pallets to be dispensed by the pallet dispenser. This down time significantly decreases the cost efficiency of running a conveyor system.
Furthermore, large pallets and small pallets differ in their construction in that the cross beams of the pallets that are spatially arranged between the top and bottom panels of the pallets or the top and bottom sheets or boards of the pallets usually have a different spacing between the beams. The prior art pallet dispensers would have actuator arms that would project horizontally into the interior volume of the pallet extending between the cross beams of the bottom most pallet of the stack and thereby support the vertical stack of pallets in the pallet dispenser interior. Retracting the actuator arms would cause the bottom most pallet to be dispensed downwardly onto the conveyor, a portion of which would typically be raised to receive the bottom most pallet. As the portion of the conveyor is lowered after receiving the bottom most pallet, the actuator arms would again be extended into the pallet dispenser interior to engage between the crossbeams of the next pallet of the stack and support the stack of pallets in the pallet dispenser interior as the previously dispensed pallet is lowered and conveyed out of the dispenser. Because large and small pallets have different numbers of cross beams that have different positions in the pallets, it would also be necessary to adjust the length of the actuator arms when the pallet dispenser is to be changed over from dispensing large pallets to dispensing small pallets, or vice versa.
What is needed to overcome the disadvantages associated with prior art pallet dispensers is a way of quickly changing over the pallet dispenser to accommodate vertical stacks of pallets of different sizes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Much of the construction of the pallet dispenser of the invention is similar to that of prior art pallet dispensers and therefor is not described in detail. The pallet dispenser is basically comprised of a rectangular base that is dimensioned to support both large and small pallets in an interior area of the base above a conveyor apparatus with which the dispenser is used. The conveyer is not part of the invention but a typical conveyor employed with pallet dispensers has a portion positioned beneath the pallet dispenser that raises to accept a pallet at a bottom of a vertical stack of pallets supported by the dispenser and then lowers incrementally to enable the pallet dispenser to engage with the next pallet above the pallet on the conveyor so that the pallet on the conveyor can be separated from the remainder of the pallets in the vertical stack supported in the interior of the pallet dispenser.
The bottom most pallet is separated from the remainder of the pallets in the vertical stack by actuator arms of the dispenser supported on the base. The actuators of the actuator arms cause the arms to swing out from the base through an arc to positions where they project inwardly from opposite sides of the base toward the base interior. As the arms are actuated and swing out through the arc of movement, they pass between the top and bottom panels of the pallet to be engaged by the arms and in between cross beams of the pallet. However, because the pallet dispenser of the invention is designed to dispense both large and small pallets, the actuator arms of the dispenser are modified. The modification is necessary because longer actuator arms needed to reach into the pallet dispenser interior a sufficient distance to engage with smalle
Kramer Dean J.
Lowe Michael
Oullette Machinery Systems, Inc.
Thompson & Coburn LLP
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