Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor arrangement for selecting among plural sources or... – By loading or unloading section at selected one of a...
Patent
1996-02-15
1998-12-22
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
058509011
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
RELATED APPLICATION
The present application is related to copending application U.S. Ser. No. 08/581,522 filed Jun. 11, 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 in this case performed with the aid of controllable conveyed item carriers, which are loaded with one item of mail in each case 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 carrier can again be loaded with an item of mail when it passes a loading point.
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 to sorting containers. 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. Each of the conveyed item carriers circulating in pairs comprises a fixedly arranged wall part and a movably arranged wall part, the movably arranged wall part forming in a closed position together with the fixedly arranged wall part a cross-sectionally V-shaped receiving pocket for the mail, and the movably arranged wall part forming in a delivery position together with the fixedly arranged wall part a downwardly open delivery slot for the conveyed items.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to provide sorting installation which is of a simple construction and ensures high-speed and reliable transfer of the conveyed item to the assigned sorting container or the assigned pigeonhole. The sorting installation is at the same time to be suitable in particular also for the sorting and distributing of thin letters.
Apart from the sorting and distributing of mail in public post offices or the in-house mail 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 invention is based on the realization that conveyed item carriers comprising a fixedly arranged wall part and a movably arranged wall part can, in the closed position, also reliably receive conveyed items, such as for example thin letters, and in delivery permit a reliably controllable transfer of the conveyed item to an assigned sorting container or an assigned pigeonhole. Stopping or braking of the conveyed item carriers upon transfer of the conveyed item is not necessary in this case since the delivery chute adjoining the delivery slot and sloping counter to the transporting direction permits particularly dependable delivery right to the sorting container or pigeonhole assigned to the respective conveyed item. The inclination of the delivery chute and the speed of the conveyed item carrier can in this case be adapted to each other such that even a vertical drop of thin letters c
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Brugger Rudolf
Schuster Rudolf
Bucci David A.
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
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