FI94851C - Automatic feeding and loading device for disc-like products - Google Patents

Description

, 94851

AUTOMATIC FEED AND LOADER FOR PLATE PRODUCTS

The present invention relates to devices for automatically feeding sheet-like products to a main warehouse, where said sheet-like products are temporarily stored and individually fed out for subsequent processing processes, and to machines for automatically transferring sheet-like products remaining in the main warehouse to another sheet-like product. for the subsequent automatic return of the flat products to the main warehouse and for loading of these flat products into said main warehouse.

In order to continuously feed the plate-like products into subsequent processing processes, a main warehouse is usually placed in connection with such a series of operations, whereby several plate-like products are stored in the main warehouse and fed from it individually or continuously for later operations.

For example, disposable type packaging containers are used to package liquid foods such as milk or juice. One such container is a rectangular parallelepiped-shaped container marked with the letter A 'in Fig. 8. To facilitate storage, transfer, and other handling of such a packaging container blank, it is generally folded flat as indicated by the letter A in Figure 7 and formed into a rectangular parallelepiped with a square cross-section for subsequent processing processes during transfer. Before being filled with liquid content, the blanks A are fed to either the spindle wheel 1 or 2, as shown in Figures 2-4, their bottoms are closed and the blanks A are finally filled with liquid content via the filling part 4 of the packaging machine 3.

However, for the continuous feeding of the flat-folded blanks A to subsequent processing processes in the main warehouse; placed at the leading edge of said process steps, the blanks A

are temporarily held in the main warehouse and the sheet-like products 2 94851 are fed individually to these processes. When the quantity or quality of the liquid foodstuff to be filled is changed, the blanks A in the main warehouse must be changed to different types. This requires that the blanks left in the main warehouse must be removed and moved to a different place for storage and that the other blanks must be moved in their place. Blanks A removed from storage must also be reloaded into the main warehouse when they are to be used again.

Using conventional methods, such an operation could not be performed automatically. It has not been possible to take out the blanks left in the main warehouse, which has led to considerable inefficiency.

The invention is characterized by what is set forth in the characterizing part of claim 1.

The present invention solves the problems encountered in using methods in which individual sheet-like products, such as the flat-folded blanks temporarily held in the main warehouse used in this application example, are continuously fed to subsequent processing processes.

To solve these problems, the present invention places at least one additional warehouse separate from the main warehouse, where individual sheet-like products to be temporarily fed to subsequent processing processes are temporarily kept, and a robot equipped with a gripping device is used to retain these sheet-like products as said robot moves between said main warehouse and the additional warehouse.

It is desirable to use multiple additional stocks.

It is also desirable that when the main warehouse is set at a certain angle, the frame of the robot with the gripping device is also set at the same angle. The main warehouse is placed at the beginning of subsequent processing processes for the continuous supply of plate-like products to them; whereby a plurality of plate-like products are temporarily fed into the main warehouse, which are then individually transferred to subsequent processing processes.

This automatic feeding and loading device for plate-like products according to the invention is shown in the accompanying drawing, in which:

Figure 1 shows a front view;

Figure 2 shows a plan view;

Fig. 3 shows a sectional view taken along the line III-III in Fig. 1;

Fig. 4 shows a sectional view taken along the line IV-IV in Fig. 1;

Figure 5 shows a robot with a gripping device on an enlarged scale;

Figure 6 shows an example of a series of plate-like products loaded into a main warehouse by means of a robot gripping device;

Figure 7 shows an example of such a plate-like product; and

Figure 8 shows a blank raised in the shape of a parallelepiped with a square cross-section.

The additional warehouses are placed in a separate position with respect to the main warehouse (for example, to the left of the main warehouse shown in Figures 1 and 2).

The robot moving between the main warehouse and the additional warehouses is equipped with a gripping device, as shown in Figures 3 and 5, for example, and can use this gripping device to hold several plate-like products according to Figures 5 and 6 *: or only one plate-like product.

When the above-mentioned main warehouse is empty, a robot equipped with a gripping device is moved and a series of plate-like products are retrieved to the main warehouse and loaded into it as shown in Fig. 6. The individual sheet products are then taken from the main warehouse and • · fed into subsequent processing processes, whereby 4,94851 of the desired operation is performed while the sheet-like products are portable. Once the plate-like products have been emptied from the main warehouse, the robot moves again and the same plate-like products as in the previous process are retrieved and loaded into the main warehouse.

Thereafter, when exchanging plate-like products in the main warehouse for plate-like products of a different type, the robot equipped with the gripping device moves to the main warehouse and the gripping device grips the plate-like products in the main warehouse. The robot then moves to an additional warehouse where it places the plate-like products it transports. The robot then moves again to retrieve other plate-like products and again back to the main warehouse where it loads these products. In this way, the plate-like products in the main warehouse can be replaced automatically. To reverse this process by reusing plate-like products transferred to the additional warehouse, the robot only has to retrieve the plate-like products from the additional warehouse and load them into the main warehouse when the main warehouse is empty.

When the main warehouse contains different types of plate-like products, the robot has to move to the main warehouse as described in connection with the above process and grip the plate-like products in the main warehouse with its gripping device. The robot must then move to an additional warehouse where these plate-like products are stored. Finally, the plate-like products in the second additional warehouse must be retrieved, transferred to the main warehouse and reloaded.

In this way, all of the following operations can be performed automatically: completely different types of plate products can be fed into the main warehouse, the same plate products can be added to the main warehouse, plate products in the main warehouse can be replaced with new types of plate products, and plate products stored in the additional warehouse can be fed back into the main warehouse.

If several additional storage facilities are used in the above cases, one or more of them may be used for the separate storage of similar plate-like products of the type, size, etc.

When the main warehouse is set at a certain angle, the robotic frame can be placed at the same angle so that the gripper can be tilted at the same angle as the main warehouse or its plate-like products, as shown in Figures 4 and 6, when loading plate-like products into a tilted main warehouse. when removed from the main warehouse.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawing.

In this embodiment, a device for feeding and loading sheet-like products is used, these sheet-like products being folded flat before being formed into rectangular parallelepipeds, as indicated by the letter A in Fig. 7, or in a series of operations during which said blanks are temporarily taken out of the main warehouse these preforms A 'formed in this way are fed to the spindle wheels 1 and 2 of the packaging machine 3 and their bottoms are closed, after which the blanks are filled with liquid content in the filling part 4 of the packaging machine 3.

The main warehouse according to Figures 1 and 2 is placed in front of the initial part of the main conveyor forming the beginning of the conveyor series.

'** - A plurality of flat-folded blanks A are temporarily held inside said main storage and are individually taken out of this main storage, for example by means of a suction cup (not shown) and fed to subsequent processing processes to form square rectangles of the same shape as A in Figure 8. using a device not shown in the figure. These blanks A ', formed as parallelepipeds with a cross-section of 6,94851, are then fed to the spindle wheel of the packaging machine 3. The main warehouse can be implemented, for example, as a shelf-like structure shown in Fig. 6.

In this embodiment, the two main conveyors 51 and 52 are set as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the flat folded blanks A are formed into square parallelograms in two lines L1 and L2 and fed to two channels leading to both spindle wheels, the spindle door 19 being marked on the full line of the channel leading to the wheel 2. The main storage is thus placed at the beginning of both lines L1 and L2 according to the letters M1 and M2 shown in Figs. The line L1 is further divided into two channels from the center of the main conveyor 51, as indicated by the letters LII and L12 in Figures 1 and 2, the line L2 being divided into two channels from the center of the main conveyor 52 as indicated by the letters L21 and L22 in Figures 1 and 2, and it can be seen that each spindle wheel 1 and 2 is divided into two left and right spindle lines 11, 12, 21 and 22 for continuous feeding of square-shaped parallelepiped blanks A '.

The additional warehouses are placed in a separate place from both main warehouses M1 and M2, i.e. to the left in Figures 1 and 2. These additional grids may be sufficiently in the form of simple boxes. In view of the capacity and shape of these additional storages and the liquid content to be filled into the blanks A, several additional storages S1-S4 shown in Figures 1 and 2 are used in this embodiment, whereby a similar blank can be stored in one or more additional storages. In this way, for example, it is possible to store all the blanks of length L in one or more additional storages S1-S4, the different lengths L of the blanks being different according to their capacity (provided that the width W of the blanks is the same), so that different blank types can be easily handled.

It is also possible to attach the rollers to the additional storages S1-S4, 7 94851 so that they can be moved individually or together. In this way, it is possible to store the blanks in a separate place by placing additional warehouses S1-S4, for example in a warehouse building.

The robot 6 is stepped again so that it can move between the main and auxiliary warehouses. Such a robot shown in Figures 3 and 5 is provided with a gripping device, for example a pair of upper and lower forks 6a and 6a. The distance between the forks of the upper and lower fork pairs 6a and 6a can be freely changed, if necessary, by means of two cylinders indicated by the numbers 6b and 6c in Fig. 5. In this case, the pair formed by the upper and lower forks 6a and 6a can grip several blanks, as shown in Figs. 5 and 6, or only one blank.

As a device for moving the robot 6 between the main stores and the auxiliary warehouses, a long guide rail 7 is used placed in front of the main warehouses M1 and M2 and the auxiliary warehouses S1 and S2 as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, and the robot 6 is moved along this guide rail 7. However, the invention is not limited to this device arrangement, but the robot 6 could also be moved by means of a carrier. In this embodiment, the forks of the pair formed by the upper and lower forks 6a and 6a can be moved to and from the main stores M1 and M2 and the additional stores S1 and S2. This makes it possible to use the pair of '* formed by the upper and lower forks 6a and 6a to load the blanks taken by the robot into the main warehouses M1 and M2 or the additional warehouses S1 and S2 or to remove the blanks therein. In this embodiment, the base of the robot 6 moves along the guide rail 6f of the frame 6e, sliding to the left from the position shown in full lines in Fig. 5.

* ί The operation of the device according to this embodiment is described below.

When the main warehouses M1 and M2 are empty, the robot 6 moves and the blank series a shown in Fig. 3 is taken, for example, from the top of the pallet 8. To grip the blank set a by means of the fork pair 6a and 6a, the robot 6 performs three operations: its base 6d moves next to the platform β 94851 8, the fork pair 6a and 6a closes, and the base 6d returns to its original position after the blank set a is gripped. Thereafter, the robot 6, which has raised the set of blanks a, moves along the guide rail 7 and the set of blanks a is loaded into the main warehouses M1 and M2. Even then, the robot 6 performs three operations: its base 6d moves next to the main warehouses M1 and M2, the pair of forks 6a and 6a opens, and the base 6d returns to its original position when the blank set a is loaded into the main warehouses M1 and M2.

After loading the blanks a into the main warehouses M1 and M2, they can be fed individually sequentially from these warehouses to the subsequent processing processes described above. As the number of blanks A in the main warehouses M1 and M2 decreases, the robot is moved again and the same blanks removed from the platform 8 and the same previously used process are used to add the blanks to the main warehouses M1 and M2.

When either the same or a different liquid food than before has to be filled in the filling part 4 with a different capacity from the blanks used in the previous process, the robot 6 is transferred to the main stores M1 and M2 and the blanks A in these stores are gripped by a pair of forks 6a and 6a. The robot 6 is then transferred to the additional warehouses S1-S4 and the blanks A are placed in one additional warehouse. The robot 6 is moved again and the new different blanks on the pallet 8 are taken from the pallet 8 using the same process procedure as before. The robot 6 then performs the same operations as before to load these blanks into the main warehouses M1 and M2.

: When blanks of different types are to be used after the use of these blanks, the same process is used as before to remove the blanks from the main warehouses M1 and M2 and to place these blanks in one additional warehouse S1-S4, which is different from the one used in the previous process. The robot 9 is then moved again, a blank of a different type on the pallet 8 is taken from the pallet 8 in the same way as before and the robot 8 performs the same operations as before to load these blanks into the main warehouses M1 and M2.

To facilitate storage, transfer and other handling of the preform sets a, these preforms are bundled and coated with packaging material, and when so coated, the packaging material hitherto on them must be cut and opened when the preform set a is placed on pallet 8 as shown in Figures 2 and 3. These cutting and opening operations can be performed automatically at a suitable location by means of suitable equipment using conventional known methods, and a set of blanks a without packaging material can be placed on the pallet 8 at the position shown in Fig. 3 or the above operations can be performed on a pallet 8 raised higher than in Fig. 3, after which the pallet 8 can be lowered to the position shown in Fig. 3.

When performing the above-mentioned processing process in the reverse order, when the main warehouses M1 and M2 are empty to reuse the blanks after their transfer to the additional warehouses S1-S4, the robot 6 only has to take these blanks out of one additional warehouse S1-S4 and load them into the main warehouses M1 and M2. When there are different blanks in the main warehouses M1 and M2, the robot 6 must take the above-mentioned steps to remove these blanks in the main warehouses M1 and M2 and place them in an empty or additional warehouse containing the same type of blanks. The robot 6 can then take out the blanks in the various additional warehouses and load them into the main warehouses M1 and M2 as previously used.

The following operations can thus be performed automatically: completely new blanks can be loaded into empty main warehouses M1 and M2, similar blanks can be added to main warehouses M1 and M2, blanks in main warehouses M1 and M2 can be exchanged for blanks of different types, or blanks stored in additional warehouses can be fed back to main warehouses M1 and M2 .

10 94851

In the present embodiment, a number of additional storage and S1-S4 are used, which allow, as mentioned above, Selmojen, i.e. different storage of blanks of similar size or type not only to facilitate handling, but also to eliminate the supply of false blanks to the main storages M1 and M2 when the blanks in the additional warehouse are reused.

When the number of blanks in the main storages M1 and M2 has decreased and the same blanks have to be added on top of the former, the number of blanks in the main storages M1 and M2 can be expressed by a photocell or sensor (not shown) from which the signal can be transmitted to the robot 6 the measures mentioned. Information on which blanks are to be loaded into the main warehouses M1 and M2, from which additional warehouses S1 to S4 to remove blanks, etc. can be centrally monitored by a computer and instructed to the robot 6 to perform all the above operations in the automated system.

The two main conveyors 51 and 52 used in this application are tilted 18 ° with respect to the horizontal direction, as shown in Fig. 4, as well as the two main storages M1 and M2 placed at their upper end. Due to this inclination, when the blanks A 'formed as parallel edges before the end of the lines LII and L12 or L21 and 22 according to Fig. 2 are placed on the spindles ewll, 12, 21, 22 of the mandrels 1 and 2, the angle of these conveyors is the same as the mandrel angle. With this compatible angle adjustment, the parallelepiped blanks A 'can be placed evenly on the spindles 11, 12, 21 and 22 at the ends of the lines 11 and L12 or L21 and L22.

The frame 6e of the robot 6 is also tilted at exactly the same angle as the main warehouses M1 and M2. When the blank set a is taken from the pallet 8 or when the blanks A stored in the additional warehouses S1-S4 are removed, the frame 6e is horizontal, and after performing these operations the frame 6e can be moved to the main warehouses M1 and M2 without changing its tilt angle. For example, to tilt the frame 6e to the position shown by the dotted lines in Figures 4 and 5, a cylinder 6h could be attached to the main base 6g to slide along the guide rod 7, and a rod at the front end of this cylinder 6h could be connected to the frame 6e. If the cylinder 6h is operated by retracting its rod from the position shown in full lines in Fig. 5, the frame 6e can be tilted relative to the main base 6g, and if the cylinder 6h is operated in the reverse order, the frame 6e can be returned to the horizontal position.

If the frame 6e is tilted to the position shown by the dotted lines in Fig. 5, the pair of forks 6a and 6a are at exactly the same angle of inclination as the main warehouses M1 and M2. In this way, several blanks can be fed or added to the main storages M1 and M2 or they can be removed from it evenly and also without breaking.

The apparatus of the present invention could be used to handle a variety of sheet-like product types other than the flat-folded blanks used in this embodiment.

A = plate-like product M1, M2 = main warehouses SI, S2, S3, S4 = additional warehouses 6 = robot • 6a = forks 6e = frame

Claims (2)

An apparatus for feeding and loading a product (A), the apparatus comprising: a robot (6) for gripping and transporting the product, a first path (7) for guiding the gripping means (6) in a horizontal direction and a second path (6f) mounted on the robot (6). ) on the frame (6e) for guiding the upper part on the robot base (6d) in the opposite direction to the first path (7), characterized in that it further comprises at least one main storage (Mj) for holding a stack of plate-like products (A) and feeding individual plate-like products (A) from there one after the other to a later process step and a plurality of additional storages (S1, S2, ...) for storing plate-like products (A) of different sizes, and for feeding a stack of pallet-like products (A) from there to the main warehouse (M2) and the robot (6) vertically movable upper and lower forks (6a, 6a) and carries a stack of plate-like products (A) a between the pallet (8), the main storage (Mx) and the additional storage (Sj, S2, ...) along the first path (7) and the robot frame (6e) can be tilted horizontally. Device for feeding and loading a product according to claim 1, characterized in that the frame (6e) of the robot (6) can be tilted to a horizontal position by means of a cylinder (6h) mounted on the base (6g) of the robot (6). »·» * · · 13 94851