Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor system having auxiliary section for storing items...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-07
2001-03-27
Ellis, Christopher P. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor system having auxiliary section for storing items...
C198S347300, C198S370010, C198S778000, C198S370120
Reexamination Certificate
active
06206169
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a supply line for supplying parallelepiped products to a user machine.
The present invention may be used to advantage on supply lines for supplying packets of cigarettes from a packing machine to a cellophaning machine, to which the following description refers purely by way of example.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Systems for manufacturing packets of cigarettes normally feature horizontal supply lines for connecting packing machines to respective cellophaning machines. During operation of the system, variations in the respective speeds of each packing machine and the corresponding cellophaning machine occur fairly frequently, due, for example, to one of the machines jamming or being arrested for cleaning and/or adjustment. To compensate for such variations without one of the machines having to be slowed down to accommodate the temporary reduction in speed of the other, it is common practice to provide an intermediate store along the supply line between the two machines.
Known stores, such as the one described in GB-A-1559796, are substantially horizontal and, being run through by the supply line, are relatively bulky in comparison to the loading capacity, and are not normally very flexible, i.e. capable of receiving packets of cigarettes of different types.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,010 discloses a cigarette pack store utilizing a rotating pack accumulating drum having a plurality of cigarette pack accumulating columns equally spaced about its periphery. Each such column guides a pack support pedestal for movement either downwardly during pack accumulation, or upwardly during pack discharge. Packs of cigarettes may be removed from a production line and accumulated, they may be stored, or they may be stored, or they may be removed from the accumulating columns and returned to the production line.
The cigarette pack store disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,010 is an improvement in respect to the known stores, such as that described in GB-A1-1559796, but is relatively complicated, i.e. expensive, to produce.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a supply line designed to eliminate the aforementioned drawbacks, and which at the same time is cheap and easy to produce.
According to the present invention, there is provided a supply line for supplying parallelepiped products to a user machine, the line comprising a conveyor for feeding said products along a given path; a store for storing said products contacting one another, and comprising a further reversible continuous conveyor and an input-output for said products; and a transfer unit for removing said products successively off said conveyor and feeding the products to said input-output, and which is reversible for removing said products successively from said input-output and feeding the products to said conveyor; said input-output comprising a conveying device for receiving said products successively from said transfer unit and arranging said products contacting one another.
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Ellis Christopher P.
G. D Societa′per Azioni
Ridley Richard
LandOfFree
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