GB1193860A - System for Stacking and Grouping, or the Like - Google Patents

Abstract

1,193,860. Stacking and grouping articles; endless conveyers. AMERICAN MACHINE & FOUNDRY CO. 27 Nov., 1967 [26 Nov., 1966], No. 53790/67. Headings B8A and B8C. In stacking and grouping articles, particularly cigarette packs, for connecting a plurality of article feeders operating in parallel, to one parcelling machine, articles are fed from supply sources 3 on to parallel conveyers 4 and thence by conveyers 2 to stacking means 7 where they are formed from below into stacks P. The formed stacks are then pushed by a plunger 9 on to conveyer 10 which conveys the group G of stack P through the various stations S1-S4 to a parcelling machine 1. The stacks P are initially positioned spaced-apart but are closed by paddles 210 on the conveyer 10 so that there is a space at the front of each group as it approaches station S2. At station S2 a re-circulated stack R is inserted in front of the group G from the re-circulating device 17 to form a completed group G1 in station S3. To provide the re-circulated stacks R, every ' nth ' group G1 of stacks P (' n ' being the number of stacks in each completed group G1) is transferred from the conveyer 10, by a horizontal pusher device 18 at station S4, on to conveyer means 19, 22 which feed the stacks. back to station S2. Thus at every ' nth ' step of conveyer 10 no stacks are fed forward to the parcelling machine 1. This does not matter in practice since the parceller is separately driven and starts its own cycle automatically when it is fed with a sufficient number of stacks P. Also at the station S4 there is provided a movable storage unit 27. If for any reason the parcelling machine is stopped the groups G1 at station S4 are transferred into the storage unit 27 and accumulated therein so that the feed of articles from source 3 need not be interrupted. When the parcelling machine is again operative the storage unit can be reversed and the stacks P re-fed to the conveyer 10 via the re-circulating device 17. Whilst this process is occurring groups G1 are not transferred from conveyer 10 to conveyer means 19 at station S4 which means that each step of conveyer 10 feeds a full group G1 of stacks P to the parcelling machine 1. Storage unit 27 consists of two parallel endless chains 28 moved on suitable toothed wheels 29 and carrying open trays 39 each suitable for containing a group G1 of stacks P. To move groups of stacks P from conveyer 10 into storage unit 27 the group is first pushed by plunger 18 on to re-circulating conveyer 19 and then raised therefrom by elevator 42 into an overlying tray 39 of the movable storage unit. The storage unit is driven in steps in synchronism with conveyer 10 by means of a suitable reversing mechanism (Fig. 5, not shown) which enables the chains 28 to be driven at will in either direction. Should the storage unit 27 become full before the parceller starts operating again a solenoid device 6 is operated to open a trap door 5 between conveyers 4 and 2 so that articles from the sources 3 fall into a container beneath the door 5.