Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor system for arranging or rearranging stream of items – By longitudinally respacing successive articles in stream
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-13
2001-08-21
Bidwell, James R. (Department: 3651)
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor system for arranging or rearranging stream of items
By longitudinally respacing successive articles in stream
C198S481100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06276514
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a toothed transfer wheel for components such as preforms or receptacles each component having a ring or neck fitted with a flange.
2. Description of Background and Relevent Information
In order to manufacture bottles or flasks or more generally receptacles made of a thermoplastic material, it is known to use preforms obtained, for example, by injection and which are in the form of a tubular body, closed at one end while its other open end is provided with a ring or neck generally fitted with a flange.
The bodies of the preforms must be subjected to a thermal treatment before being expanded during a moulding operation by blowing or steam blowing.
In a manufacturing line of this type, the preforms and/or the receptacles obtained by blowing circulate from one manufacturing station to another and even within certain stations themselves such as, for example, a thermal oven for preforms.
In order to transport the preforms and/or the receptacles, it is known to hold them up and to guide them on rails on which they are supported by their flanges.
In certain cases, it is necessary to use ring and pinion gearing, for example, to pass preforms from a supply station provided with an inclined rail to the heat treatment oven and it is then known to use a toothed transfer wheel, where the preforms are held up by their flanges, during rotation of the wheel, between respectively arrival and discharge areas or stations provided close to the periphery of the wheel.
The toothed wheel is formed as a single component and in certain cases it can happen that a preform or a receptacle gets jammed between the leading face of a tooth and the guide rail, causing locking of the wheel and because of that, jamming of the other devices driven by the same motor (a single motor is generally used for the different devices because of problems of synchronisation), such as, for example, the system for moving the preforms forward into the heat treatment oven, which clearly causes preforms which have spent too long in the oven to be lost and a loss of the time spent restoring the operation.
Even if several independent motors are used to prevent loss at a station located downstream in the manufacturing line, in addition to the problem of the extra cost and all the difficulties of synchronisation and the subsequent resetting of the motors, the jamming of the transfer wheel still remains very troublesome.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This is why the invention provides for a toothed transfer wheel that is notably remarkable in that it is provided with a plurality of independent peripheral teeth which are pivotably mounted on spindles and which are each designed to transport a preform or receptacle during the rotation of the wheel while each tooth is able to pivot in the direction that is opposite to the direction of rotation of the wheel and to release the preform or receptacle in the event of resistance to the driving force being greater than the force of an elastic recall means provided to urge said tooth into its normal transporting position.
In this way, there is no longer any jamming problem and also therefore no loss of a large number of products in a manufacturing station, even if for certain stations (for example a moulding station), the detection of a missing preform in the line causes the scrapping of a certain relatively reduced number of said preforms because of handling of the preforms by batch.
Advantageously, the teeth are embedded one inside the other and between them have contact surfaces in the shape of an S, while their pivoting spindle is offset forwards in relation to the direction of rotation of the wheel in such a way that each tooth is able to pivot through co-operation of its shapes, respectively concave and convex, with the shapes, respectively convex and concave of the teeth which are either side of it and in this case, each tooth can have, for example, a heel on the rear end of its S shape, which ensures that it is checked and set in position on the following tooth in relation to the direction of rotation of the wheel and so that the following tooth is stationary when pivoting has occurred or is in progress.
According to one embodiment, the wheel includes a disc which acts as a pivoting bearing surface for each tooth, in which is freely mounted the pivoting spindle for the tooth, the spindle being rigidly fixed in rotation with the tooth, while the elastic recall for each tooth is, for example, constituted by a coil torsion spring positioned around the pivoting spindle of the tooth and one end of which is fixed to the disc while the other end is fixed in rotation with the pivoting spindle.
In this case, according to one embodiment, the end of the torsion spring fixed in rotation with the pivoting spindle, is fixed between a part of the spindle and a part of a sleeve which surrounds the spring and which is fixed in rotation with the spindle.
The invention will be understood and other particular features will become apparent on reading the description that follows and which makes reference to the appended drawings in which:
REFERENCES:
patent: 1556991 (1925-10-01), Hippenmeyer
patent: 1941152 (1933-12-01), Noll
patent: 1985897 (1935-01-01), Huntar
patent: 2007981 (1935-07-01), Nordquist
patent: 2026811 (1936-01-01), Bach
patent: 2155088 (1939-04-01), Hopkins
patent: 4114347 (1978-09-01), Morris et al.
patent: 4239116 (1980-12-01), Eisenberg et al.
patent: 5501552 (1996-03-01), Simkowski
patent: 0629569 (1994-12-01), None
patent: 1196430 (1959-11-01), None
ADS
Bidwell James R.
Greenblum & Bernstein P.L.C.
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