DK201570341A1 - A cloth picker - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a cloth picker having clamp arms with tips moving in a plane of movement wherein opposite side shields are mounted next to said clamp arms, said shields having a edge portion located adjacent to a tip of said clamp arms and extending parallel to, or essentially parallel to, said plane, said edge portions together defining an entry gap of said cloth picker, said gap preferably being sized and dimensioned to prevent entry of said cloth between said clamp arms and said shields and a method of collecting a separate piece of cloth from a pile of crumpled cloths.

Description

A cloth picker

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a cloth picker having clamp arms moving in a plane of movement for separating laundry articles, such as towels, tablecloths and bed linen, from a tangled pile of such articles.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In laundries, square and/or rectangular cloths, such as towels, tablecloths and bed linen, are washed, dewatered, dried, optionally ironed and then folded into a package for use in hotels, hospitals, or the like. The dried cloths discharged from the drying step are crumpled and may be delivered to the next step as a bunch or pile of cloth. Thus, in laundries a certain effort is made with a view to picking up and separating the individual laundry articles from the pile in which they are located to enable them to be introduced individually in an apparatus for straightening, optionally ironing and then folding.

Modern laundry facilities use an automatic cloth picker to perform the cumbersome task of collecting and pulling out the individual laundry article from the pile. Such apparatus is disclosed in the WO-patent 02/077355.

One disadvantage of many cloth pickers is that they too often grip on too many pieces of the cloths at the same time, complicating the delivering of the cloths to the next processing step. It is therefore desirable to provide a cloth picker which grip on to a small portion of the pile or bunch of cloths and thereby to provide a more uniform and optimal delivery to the apparatus handling the cloths next, by ensuring a higher degree of individualisation of the pieces of cloth.

Another object of the invention is hereby to provide a method which can collect a large number of individual laundered cloths from a crumpled pile of cloths within a short period of time

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Disclosed herein is a cloth picker having clamp arms with tips and moving in a plane of movement wherein opposite side shields are mounted next to said clamp arms, said shields each having an edge portion located adjacent to the tip of the clamp arms and extending parallel to, or essentially parallel to, said plane, the edge portions together defining an entry gap of said cloth picker. The gap is gap preferably sized and dimensioned relatively narrow to prevent or restrict entry of the cloth between the clamp arms and each of the shields.

When the cloth picker starts digging into a pile of cloths the edge portion of the shields put a pressure on the top cloth and keeps a majority of the top cloth away from the clamp arms so that only a small portion of the cloth is accessible for a portion of the clamp arms not covered by the shields, i.e. the tip of the clamp arms.

This arrangement allows for collecting individual pieces of cloths from a pile of crumbled or tangled cloths by gripping only a small portion of the cloths so that the cloths can be delivered in a more uniform an optimal way to the next processing step. The next processing step may be a straightening apparatus, straightening the cloths so that the cloths in a further upstream processing step can be folded.

The arrangement may also be used to collect individual pieces of crumbled cloth delivered successively to the cloth picker, separately from subsequent pieces of cloth.

In one or more embodiments the cloth picker further comprises a sensor part for detecting the presence of said cloth. This may be as the cloth picker approaches said cloth.

The sensor part may thereby be used to detect when the cloth picker reaches the pile of cloths and may hereby be used to determine when the cloth picker is to stop its travel towards the pile of cloth, i.e. when the cloth picker has reached a collect position, where the clamp arms are to be closed, i.e. where the tip of the clamp arms are urged towards each other, and when the cloth picker is moved away from the pile of cloths towards a deliver position.

The sensor part may also be used to detect whether the cloth picker has collected a cloth from the pile or if a cloth is lost as the cloth picker is moved away from the pile of cloths.

The sensor part may be a photocell which may be darkened by a cloth which may be a top cloth of the pill or a collected cloth.

In one or more embodiments one or both of said shields are shaped as a plate.

In one or more embodiments one or both of said shields are partly shaped from a bar defining the edge portion mentioned above, the edge portion defining the entry gap of said cloth picker.

In one or more embodiments said cloth picker is movable preferably in said plane, to a deliver position.

Furthermore is disclosed a method of collecting crumpled pieces of cloths by means of a cloth picker having clamp arms with tips moving in a plane of movement, the method comprising; moving said cloth picker towards a pile of cloths along a path to a collect position, said clamp arms being open, collecting said cloth by closing said clamp arms, moving said cloth picker back along said path to a deliver position for delivery of said cloth to a next processing step, wherein the cloth picker comprises opposite side shields mounted next to said clamp arms, said shields having an edge portion located adjacent to a tip of said clamp arms and extending parallel to, or essentially parallel to, said plane, said edge portions together defining an entry gap of said cloth picker, said gap preferably being sized and dimensioned relatively narrow to prevent or restrict entry of the cloth between the clamp arms and each of the shields.

The clamp arms are defined as being open, when the tips are apart from each other in said plane, and closed, when the tips are urged towards each other.

The exact collect position may depend on the size of the pile of cloths, so that when having a large pile of cloths the collect position may be closer to the deliver position than when having a small pile of cloths.

In one or more embodiments the method further comprises a step of detecting said pile of cloth, by means of a sensor part of said cloth picker. The sensor part may be positioned centrally between the clamp arms and/or the shields.

The sensor part may thereby be used to detect when the cloth picker reaches the pile of cloths and may thereby be used to determine when the cloth picker is to stop, where the clamp arms is closed and when the cloth picker is moved away from the pile of cloth.

The sensor part may also be used for continuous detection along said path to determine whether the cloth picker has collected a cloth and/or whether the collected cloth may be lost along the way from the collect position to the deliver position.

Hereby is it avoided that the cloth picker is moved all the way form the collect position to the deliver position without having collected a piece of cloth. If the sensor part detects that the cloth picker has not collected a cloth or lost the collected cloth, the cloth picker may be moved towards the collect position instead of continuing to the deliver position. This contributes to make the pick-up process more efficient.

In one or more embodiments the method further comprises the step of performing a shaking movement, such as an abrupt down movement followed by a continuation of the upward movement of the cloth picker along said path.

Hereby is the crumbled cloths unfolded so they hangs more neatly from the cloth picker, and so that the cloths can be delivered in an even more uniform an optimal way to the next processing step.

In one or more embodiments the method further comprises a step of continuous detecting whether said collected cloth is lost during said cloth pickers travel from said collect position to said deliver position, by means of said sensor part.

In one or more embodiments the aforementioned method is performed with the apparatus described above.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, as follows;

Fig. 1 schematically shows a cloth picker.

Fig. 2 schematically shows cloth picker in a collect position.

Fig. 3 schematically shows cloth picker in a deliver position.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERED EMBODIMENTS

Fig. 1 schematically shows a cloth picker 1 according to the invention for collecting a separate piece of cloth from a pile of crumpled cloths (not shown) having two pivotably mounted clamp arms 2 and opposite side shields 3 mounted next to said clamp arms. The picker 1 is operated to move up and down, vertically or at an angle, by an arm extending through a slit S formed in a wall W of a housing. The clamp arms 2 have tips 6 that move towards and away from each other along direction A in a plane of movement 4 when the arms 2 are pivoted about an axis perpendicular to, or essentially perpendicular to, the plane 4. Each shield has an edge portion 5 located adjacent to the tip of said clamp arms 2 and extending parallel to, or essentially parallel to, the plane 4. The shields 3 cover a portion of the clamp arms 2 not including the tip 6 of the clamp arms, so that the edge portions 5 together with the tip 6 of the clamp arms in their spread apart position define an entry gap of the cloth picker. The gap is sized and dimensioned relatively narrow and the cloth picker 1 collects a piece of cloth by gripping only onto a small portion of the pile of cloth. This preferably as entry of the cloth between each of the clamp arms 2 and the shields 3 is prevented/restricted.

The shields 3 are in the presently illustrated embodiment shaped as a plate. But, as indicated by the dotted lines L, the part of the shields 3 defining the edge portion 5 may simply be a bar.

The cloth picker 1 has a sensor part 7, which comprises a photocell, which detects when the cloth picker 1 reaches a piece of cloth which is to be collected. The sensor part 7 points out of the entry gap defined by the clamp arms 2 and shields 3 and is positioned approximately in the centre between the two clamp arms 2 and between the two shields 3.

Fig. 2 schematically shows a cloth picker 1 in a collect position 10. The cloth picker 1 is movable between the collect position 10 and a deliver position 11 (see Fig. 3) along the slit S in the wall W following a path 12. The clamp arms 2 are typically open, i.e. moved apart, when the cloth picker 1 moves from the deliver position 11 to the collect position 10, and closed, i.e. urged toward each other, when the cloth picker 1 starts moving from the collect position 10 to the deliver position 11. The path 12 runs approximately along a vertical plane where the collect position 10 is positioned below the deliver position 11; the path 12 may alternatively be curved or inclined at an angle to the vertical.

As the cloth picker 1 approaches the collect position 10 with open clamp arms 2 and thereby approaches the pile of cloths 20 to be collected one by one, the sensor part 7 (see Fig. 1) of the cloth picker 1 detects when the pile of cloth 20 has been reached. When the sensor part 7 is activated by the pile of cloth 20, the cloth picker 1 is stopped, the clamp arms 2 are closed and the cloth picker 1 starts moving back along the path 12 toward the deliver position 11 (see Fig. 3).

If the sensor part 7 (see Fig. 1) detects that no cloth has been collected or that the cloth is lost by the cloth picker 1 on its way to the deliver position 12, the cloth picker 1 stops, the clamp arms 2 opens and the cloth picker 1 change direction towards the collect position 10. The cloth picker 1 may move further into the pile of cloths 20 the second time. If the cloth picker 1 has not been able to collect a piece of cloth three times in a row, a conveyer belt 30 may be activated to convey more cloths towards the collect position 10, such as to build up a pile against wall W.

In order to untangle the crumbled cloth, the cloth picker 1 may make a shaking movement, i.e. a movement down and up, along a short portion of the path 12. The short portion of the path 12 may be closer to the deliver position 11 than the collect position 10.

Fig. 3 schematically shows a cloth picker 1 in a deliver position 11 with a collected cloth 21.

Claims (11)

1. A cloth picker (1) having clamp arms (2) with tips (6) moving in a plane of movement (4), characterised in that opposite side shields (3) are mounted next to said clamp arms (2), said shields (3) each having an edge portion (5) located adjacent to a tip (6) of said clamp arms (2) and extending parallel to, or essentially parallel to, said plane (4), said edge portions (5) together defining an entry gap of said cloth picker (1).

2. The cloth picker of claim 1, said gap being sized and dimensioned relatively narrow to prevent or restrict entry of the cloth between the clamp arms (2) and each of the shields (3).

3. The cloth picker according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in further comprising a sensor part (7) for detecting the presence of said cloth.

4. The cloth picker according to claim 1 or 2 or 3, characterised in that one or both of said shields (3) are shaped as a plate.

5. The cloth picker according to claim 1 or 2 or 3, characterised in that one or both of said shields (3) are partly shaped as a bar.

6. The cloth picker according to any one of the claims 1 to 5, characterised in said cloth picker (1) being movable along a path (S), preferably in said plane (4), to a deliver position (11).

7. A method of collecting crumpled pieces of cloths by means of a cloth picker (1) having clamp arms (2) with tips (6) moving in a plane of movement (4), the method comprising: - moving said cloth picker (1) towards a pile of cloths along a path (12) to a collect position (10), said clamp arms (2) being open, - collecting said cloth by closing said clamp arms (2), - moving said cloth picker (1) back along said path (12) towards a deliver position (11) for delivery of said cloth to a next processing step, characterised in that said cloth picker (1) comprising opposite side shields (3) mounted next to said clamp arms (2), said shields (3) having an edge portion (5) located adjacent to a tip (6) of said clamp arms (2) and extending parallel to, or essentially parallel to, said plane (4), said edge portions (5) together defining an entry gap of said cloth picker (1), said gap preferably being preferably sized and dimensioned relatively narrow to prevent or restrict entry of the cloth between the clamp arms and each of the shields (3).

8. The method according to claim 7, further comprising a step of detecting said pile of cloth, by means of a sensor part (7) of said cloth picker (1).

9. The method according to any one of the claims 7 or 8, further comprising the step of performing a shaking movement with said cloth picker (1) along said path (12).

10. The method according to any one of the claims 7 to 9, further comprising continuously detecting whether said collected cloth is lost during said movement of said cloth picker from said collect position (10) to said deliver position (11), by means of said sensor part.

11 .The method according to any one of the claims 7 to 10 performed with the cloth picker according to any one of the claims 1 to 6.