GB1150025A - Improvements in can filling apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

1,150,025. Can-filling machines. F.M.C. (AUSTRALIA) Ltd. 30 Jan., 1967 [28 Jan., 1966], No. 4428/67. Headings B8C and B8T. A can filling machine, for use with liquids or fluent solids, comprises a filling head 3 with a measuring cylinder 7 into which a piston 41 draws filling material, the cylinder 7 being angularly movable to align ports at its base so that the piston may expel the material into a waiting can. A central storage vessel 2 has a plurality of filling heads 3 arranged peripherally about it, the whole assembly being rotatable about the central vertical axis of the vessel 2. Each cylinder 7 is rotatable in a housing 4 and has inlet parts 10 in its wall able to register with a supply passage 5 and an aperture 6. The base plate 8 of the cylinder 7 has outlet ports (11), Fig. 3 (not shown), which can be aligned with a hole 24 in a fixed bottom plate 13 of the housing 4 to allow discharge of material into a can 12. The upper end 25 of the cylinder 7 has a sleeve 28 provided with striker arms 29, 30 engageable with a pair of rollers 31, 32 fixed to the frame of the machine, to cause rotation of the cylinder 7 by approximately 90 degrees when the cylinder 7 passes the position of each roller 31, 32 during rotation of the assembly. The piston 41 has a rod 53 which is slidable in a bearing 54 and an arm 57 with a roller 61which operates in a cam track 62 extending around the machine and shaped to raise and lower the piston 41 at appropriate points during the rotation of the assembly. In operation, a sensing device (not shown) actuates a fluid pressure mechanism 46, lowering the roller 31 into the path of the striker arm 30, only if an empty can 12 is present. Material then is drawn into the cylinder 7 by the piston 41 with the outlet ports 11 closed; the inlet port 10 is then closed and material is ejected into the can 12 by opening one of the ports 11 and lowering the piston 41. After the refilling of the cylinder 7, the filled can is removed and an empty can 12 is placed beneath the head 3. Ejection of material does not take place if no can is present since the roller 31 is not in position to be contacted by the striker 29; the material is returned to the vessel 2 by the piston 41, and the cylinder 7 is not rotated since the strikers 30 remain out of contact with the roller 32. In a modification, Figs. 9-14 (not shown), for use with liquids only, the inlet parts for the cylinder 7 are in the base plate 8 instead of in the cylinder wall. Further modifications incorporate different numbers of ports, and, in particular, the cylinder may have a common passage for inflow and discharge. The filling head as described may be used, with suitable modifications, in a "straight-line" machine. The cylinder 7 may be rotated alternately in opposite directions.