Classifying – separating – and assorting solids – Sorting special items – and certain methods and apparatus for... – Separating means
Patent
1997-04-21
1999-03-16
Noland, Kenneth
Classifying, separating, and assorting solids
Sorting special items, and certain methods and apparatus for...
Separating means
19837002, B07C 900
Patent
active
058818898
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a portioning apparatus of the grader type, i.e. an apparatus having an inlet for a flow of mutually separated objects, a station for detecting a relevant quality of the objects, preferably their weight, a control unit, a conveying line for further conveying the objects along a sorting out path with an associated series of receiver containers, diverter means for selectively unloading the objects, controlled by the control unit, for an accumulative building up of desired object portions in the receiver containers, actuation means controlled by the control unit for effecting outletting of finished portions from the receiver containers, and conveyor means located underneath the containers for currently receiving and delivering the finished portions.
This type of apparatus is used primarily in the food industry, for the handling of fresh or frozen pieces of foodstuff to be merged into portions according to predetermined criteria, e.g. for achieving a fixed portion weight with a higher or lower tolerance, despite the objects exhibiting a marked weight distribution.
Thus, what is actual is the handling of unwrapped objects, which can be anticipated to be more or less sticky or as far as the frozen objects are concerned more or less fragile, and the apparatus, of course, should be adapted correspondingly.
Preferably, the said conveying path is constituted by a suitable conveyor belt, while the diverter means are made as diverter wings which may be selectively swung-in over the belt at the relevant places and moments of time for guiding or even throwing out the objects to the respective receiving or portioning containers, whereafter they are immediately swung out again for enabling a free passage of following objects to succeeding containers.
The receiving or portioning containers should be designed such that they are suitable for reception of both sticky and semi-fragile objects, i.e. with steep walls for avoiding adherence of a received object to a wall portion rather than the object reaching the outlet bottom of the container, and with a relatively low building height for preventing fragile objects from reaching the bottom with such a high speed of falling that objects could incidentally break. A low building height, of course, will be desirable also for other reasons, e.g. because underneath the containers space should be provided for the outlet conveyor to receive the finished portions from the containers.
When a desirably high working speed is used, even with optional throw-out action, the unloading will be connected with a certain spread in the delivery positions of the articles at the single containers, i.e. these should have a mouthing of a certain oversize relative to the size of the articles. Seen in the transverse direction of the conveyor belt this is no special problem, but in the longitudinal direction it results in the conveyor having to be built with a kind of overlength, implying extra costs and space requirements.
The invention has for its purpose to provide an apparatus of the type specified, by which the said conveyor may be built with reduced length for a given number of receiver containers.
With the invention is it realised that in this respect there is not much to gain by a reduction of the distance between the receiver containers along the conveyor, as the containers may already be located quite close to each other, and it is even renounced to reduce the length dimension of the containers in the length direction of the conveyor, inasfar as the said spread in the delivery positions of the articles is accepted. However, in connection with the invention it has been recognised that it is advantageously possible to make use of a special cross distribution principle previously suggested in a deviating concept, viz. in connection with a postal sorting system for envelopes and small parcels according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,260, where use is made of a controlled system for a selective distribution of objects received in each single rec
REFERENCES:
patent: 3661255 (1972-05-01), Toth
patent: 4732260 (1988-03-01), Canziani
Noland Kenneth
Safran David S.
Scanvaegt A/S
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