GB1161611A - Conveyor System - Google Patents

Abstract

1,161,611. Elevated railways; conveyer systems. HOLBORN METAL WORKS Ltd. 11 Nov., 1966 [11 Aug., 1965], No. 34338/65. Heading B7L. In an elevated gravity driven monorail conveyer system for conveying laundry in bags on roller carrying hooks, the loaded hooks are lifted by an elevator 11, Fig. 1, on to an elevated first monorail from which they are selectively delivered via switches or points 13 to parking monorail lines 12, from which they can be directed via switches or points 14 on to a second monorail 16 which delivers the loaded hooks to a sorting bay 15, the bags being emptied at the bay and the laundry sorted into mobile hoppers 17. The unloaded hooks return by the rail 16 to the loading position adjacent the elevator 11. The switches 13, 14 may be such as those described in Specification 1,094,261 and the roller hooks may be as described in Specification 975,269. Each mobile hopper 17 includes a bag and spring weighing balance as described with reference to Fig. 7 (not shown). The bags from the hoppers are loaded on to roller hooks and conveyed by an elevator 21, Fig. 1, to a monorail 20 on which they run to various washing machines 60. Each elevator 11 or 21 comprises an inclined monorail 24, Fig. 4, having an arcuate entry portion 61 and an elevated outlet portion 68. The roller hooks are raised from the portion 61 by lifting tabs 62 on an endless chain running round upper and lower sprockets on a frame 66 which supports the rail 24 by brackets 67. One of the sprockets is driven by an electric motor (not shown). Another elevator described with reference to Figs. 6 and 8 (not shown), includes a lifting unit having rollers engaging both sides of a wall of a vertical frame and also carrying an inclined length of monorail for connecting to the elevated monorail. In another form of elevator described with reference to Fig. 9 (not shown), two sections of monorail are carried by two spaced vertical endless chains and can both elevate and lower roller hooks between lower and upper sections of a monorail track and between upper and lower sections of another monorail track, respectively.