Sorting machine for stacks of sheet metal panels

Details Sorting machine for stacks of sheet metal panels Sorting machine for stacks of sheet metal panels

2000-03-24

2002-08-20

Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3653)

Classifying, separating, and assorting solids

Sorting special items, and certain methods and apparatus for...

C198S434000, C198S457010, C198S459600, C414S790000, C414S790100, C414S789800, C209S539000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06435352

ABSTRACT:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not applicable.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
Not applicable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates in general to equipment for handling sheet metal and, more particularly, to a sorting machine for separating and arranging stacks of sheet metal panels.
Sheet metal finds widespread use in manufactured products, particularly in housings for appliances and other equipment and in cabinets of one sort or another. Most of this sheet metal comes in large coils produced at rolling mills. The manufacturers of the finished products slit and shear this sheet metal into panels of desired size for subsequent bending, stamping or other working. Some manufactures engage independent contractors to slit and shear the sheet metal. Irrespective of whomever performs the slitting and shearing, the panels derived from these operations accumulate in stacks which are often wrapped and banded and otherwise deposited for subsequent processing.
Typically, the coil of sheet metal is supported on a stand from which it is withdrawn and delivered to a feeding machine which advances it in measured increments into a slitting machine where it passes through rotary knives that slit it into side-by-side strips. Beyond, the slitting machine the strips passes into a shear which, at the end of each incremental advance, severs the strips transversely, producing multiple panels, the number of which depend on the number of slits imparted by the slitting machine. In any event, the dimensions of the panels derived depend on the spacing between the pairs of rotary knives on the slitting machine and the length of each incremental advance produced by the feeding machine. The shear deposits the panels in a stacking machine where they accumulate in a set of side-by-side stacks. When each stack of a set contains a prescribed number of panels, the stacking machine discharges the set of stacks onto a conveyor.
But the stacks of a set are no farther apart than the strips from which panels are sheared, and thus much too close for subsequent procedures such as wrapping or banding. The side-by-side stacks of the set must be separated and repositioned. This requires time—often more than the shearing machine takes to produce another set of side-by-side stacks. As a consequence, the separating and repositioning restricts the capabilities of the equipment which precedes it.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention resides in a sorting machine having a conveyor and a transfer carriage that moves transversely with respect to the conveyor and further has the capacity to elevate objects from and lower them onto the conveyor. This enables the machine to rearrange stacks of side-by-side panels which are directed onto the conveyor.


REFERENCES:
patent: 3887060 (1975-06-01), Kamphues

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