GB1230124A - - Google Patents

Abstract

1,230,124. Packaging cases. SIMPLIMATIC DEVELOPMENT CORP. 10 July, 1968 [21 July, 1967], No. 32979/68. Heading B8C. A continuously operating case packing machine has a series of endless belts and sprocket chains for conveyance of (a) objects to be packaged to an upper position at a packing station D, (b) cases to a lower position at the packing station, (c) a grid assembly having guide shoots, for guiding the objects into the cases, to a position intermediate the aforementioned positions and (d) packed cases from the packing station. Bottles 2, Fig. 3A, travel from an infeed end 8 along belts 12, 18, 20 between guides 16 to a station 30 where guide rails 32 separate the bottles into longitudinal rows. Pusher bars 36 are slidably mounted in bar housings 38 which are mounted on and carried by sprocket chains 40 so that engagement of the cams 46 on bars 36 with converging and diverging sections 50b, (50c), Fig. 3B (not shown) of guide rails 50 cause them to reciprocate. Insertion of the bars 36 between transverse rows of bottles groups them into a predetermined package arrangement, the bars then effecting transport of the bottles from the belt 20 along a dead plate 51 and static bars 52 to the packing station D, Fig. 1. Open topped cases 4, Fig. 1, are conveyed first along conveyer belts 54, 56 and then along an inclined slide plate 80 by transverse flight bars (76), Fig. 2A (not shown), on sprocket chains 74. The grid assembly 6 has depending resilient converging guide shoots 114 which are articulately mounted upon sprocket chains 98 which move the shoots anticlockwise to engage within the case 4 (which may have partitioning means) prior to the packing station D. The case and guide shoots then move together so that the upper parts of the shoots engage the bottles whereupon on reaching staggered ends (52a- 52d), Fig. 3B (not shown) of the static bars 52 the bottles fall through the shoots into the case one by one. Belts 84, 88 convey the packed case from the packing station whilst the grid assembly returns to its original position.