GB1217700A - A machine for vending inflated balloons - Google Patents

Abstract

1,217,700. Balloon inflation. MINER INDUSTRIES Inc. 17 Dec., 1968 [19 July, 1968], No. 59860/68. Heading B7W. [Also in Division A4] In a machine vending inflated balloons, the uninflated balloons B with an inflation valve V are frictionally held by the neck in orifices 24 in a belt 23 lifted from a store and passed over a dispensing cabinet 13 via a guide 25 comprising side grooves engaging the belt edge. Supported on the grooves are side grooves 39b in which an inverted U-shaped carriage 37 slides from a leftto a right-hand position parallel to the belt by means of spring loaded air piston 50, 52, the carriage carrying a spring-loaded air piston 40, 42 connected for simultaneous vertical movement of an inflation nozzle 70, 31 and a balloon ejector 59. A coin actuates an electric circuit and cam timer controlling a pneumatic circuit whereby the carriage is spring returned to the left, the spring of piston 40 lowers nozzle 31 into the valve V of a balloon at S 2 , the ejector 59 at the same time pushing the inflated balloon at S 1 out of the belt into the dispense opening 13. Piston 50 now moves the carriage to the right, the nozzle indexing forward the belt until the balloon from S 2 reaches S 1 and hangs through opening 30 into space 13. The nozzle inflates the balloon first with air from a compressor then with helium from a bottle and again with air to purge the circuit of helium. Piston 40 raises nozzle 31 and the carriage returns leftwards, the nozzle then engages the preceding balloon as the ejector releases the inflated one. Piston 88 and knife 89 cuts the belt into portions for convenience and a belt-operated gate 80, 81 prevents pilfering of a balloon at S 2 . Switch SW 3 signals and prevents operation when the belt is finished and a pressure switch does the same when the helium bottle is empty. A string 22 may be releasably secured around valve V.