GB1119596A - Improvement in packaging machines for cigarettes - Google Patents

Abstract

1,119,596. Packaging-machines; conveying cigarette cassettes. ARENCO A.B. 20 June, 1966 [8 July, 1965], No. 27489/66. Headings B8A and B8C. In a packaging machine (shown in plan view in Fig. 1) cigarettes fall from cassettes 1 to a receiver 4 when the loose bottom of each cassette is slid to one side. The empty cassette 9 is then fed from an intermittently moving first conveyer 2, along which it is pushed by arms on chains 3, on to a transfer table 6, where pushers 8 transfer it across to a second conveyer 10, to be returned to a filling station. The drive of the pushers 8 is controlled by a lever (31), Fig. 4 (not shown), which operates the mechanism for sliding the loose bottom (30) of each cassette to be emptied forward into the proceeding empty cassette resting on the transfer table. Thus in its rearward position, prior to displacement of the loose bottom (30), the lever (31) operates a switch (38) which permits driving of the first conveyer 2, Fig. 1, but prevents driving of the pushers 8. In the forward position of the lever (31), Fig. 4 (not shown), after it has displaced the loose bottom (30) by its action on a slidable rod (39) carrying a hinged pawl (41) which contacts the edge of the bottom (30), a switch (37) is closed, permitting the driving of both conveyers and the pushers. The lever (31) is controlled by a cam (34), through a follower (35). A switch (28), Fig. 2 (not shown), engages a clutch controlling the drive of the pushers (8) when an emptied cassette (9) is fed on to the transfer table, and a further switch (29), operated by one of the pushers (8) when the other pusher has transferred the empty cassette on to the second conveyer 10, Fig. 1, disengages the clutch. The second conveyer 10 comprises two parallel rotating screws 11, the threads of which engage grooves or projections in the bottom surface of each cassette. These grooves or projections may be resilient so that when a cassette is stopped by previously emptied cassettes 14, 15, awaiting manual removal from the conveyer 10, the threads on the screws 11 can disengage from the grooves or projections. The drive for the pushers 8, operating through the clutch, is from one of the screws 11. The mechanism whereby the loose bottom of each cassette is slid to one side to allow the cigarettes to fall into the receiver, may alternatively be situated at the beginning of the second conveyer 10.