Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor arrangement for selecting among plural sources or... – By loading or unloading section at selected one of a...
Patent
1996-01-11
1998-12-15
Bucci, David A.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor arrangement for selecting among plural sources or...
By loading or unloading section at selected one of a...
19837003, B07C 308
Patent
active
058486828
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
RELATED APPLICATION
The present application is related to copending application U.S. Ser. No. 03/531,521 filed Feb. 15, 1996 entitled "SORTING INSTALLATION, IN PARTICULAR FOR MAIL", Schuster et al, inventors.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The machine-readable postal code numbers to be given on items of mail, such as letters, postcards, parcels and the like, as a code number for a location, a delivery area, a post office box or a major recipient make it possible for the mail to be distributed at high speed by machine. The sorting of the incoming items of mail is performed in this case with the aid of controllable conveyed item carriers, which are loaded with in each case one item of mail manually or by machine at specific loading points and then deliver this item of mail to a sorting container, or a corresponding pigeonhole, assigned to the respective postal code number. Since, for reasons of saving space, there is the wish to arrange both the loading points and the sorting containers or pigeonholes on different levels, the conveyed item carriers circulating on conveying mechanisms must possibly also be able to provide a link between different heights. After the transfer of the item of mail to the assigned sorting container or the assigned pigeonhole, the empty conveyed item container can again be loaded with an item of mail when it passes a loading point.
FR-A-24 54 338 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,310,276 discloses a sorting installation for mail which has a plurality of conveyed item carriers, circulating on a conveying mechanism, for receiving, transporting and controllably delivering the mail. The conveyed item carriers are in this case fastened in pairs opposite one another to circulating transport cars of the conveying mechanism. The transport cars, which are driven for example by an endless chain, are guided by rollers on a rail which is vertically aligned and extends in the transporting direction. In the region of two U-shaped deflecting means of the conveying mechanism lying next to each other, the transport cars are taken along a total of four parallel double rows with sorting containers, into which the mail can be discharged from the conveyed item carriers. A circulation of the transport cars suspended from the rails on two or more levels could be realized only with difficulty due to the great overall height of the suspended cars.
U.S. Pat. No. 3 300 026 discloses a sorting installation for mail which has conveyed item carriers circulating in pairs on a conveying mechanism for receiving, transporting and controllably delivering the mail. The conveying mechanism comprises two endlessly circulating chains which are at a distance from each other, are guided in a meandering form by means of corresponding rollers and guide the conveyed item carriers on a number of levels lying one above the other, along in each case a row with sorting containers. The meandering path of the conveying mechanism on a number of levels results in a relatively large overall height of the sorting installation, with correspondingly poor accessibility of the sorting containers arranged on the upper levels.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to provide a sorting installation of which the transporting mechanism is of a simple construction and permits reliable transport of the conveyed item carriers between the loading point and the sorting containers or pigeonholes assigned to the respective conveyed item. The transporting mechanism is at the same time to be able in particular to provide a link between different heights, again with little complexity.
Apart from the sorting and distributing of mail in public post offices or the in-house post centers of large companies, a sorting installation according to the invention can also be used, for example, in warehouse systems or automatic order-picking systems for comparable tasks, in which products or parts provided with codings are delivered to sorting containers or pigeonholes assigned to the respective codings.
The advantages achieved by the inventio
REFERENCES:
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patent: 4310276 (1982-01-01), Castagnoli
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patent: 5361888 (1994-11-01), Brown et al.
Brugger Rudolf
Hopler Adolf
Lange Wilfried
Schulz Volkmar
Schuster Rudolf
Bucci David A.
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
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