GB1246965A - Improvements in or relating to article handling and processing equipment suitable for filling layer cakes - Google Patents

Abstract

1,246,965. Making layer cakes. J. HANDLEY. 25 Oct., 1968 [30 Oct., 1967], No. 49209/ 67. Heading A3A. [Also in Divisions B5 and B8] In a machine for depositing on to a flat surface of an article, e.g. a layer cake, which is carried through the machine by handling means, e.g. a conveyer, a circular disc of extrudable material, e.g. cream, the extruding equipment comprises an extruding head 130 which is mounted on a rotatable axis, preferably a vertical axis, and has a radial slot of V shape formed by fixed and pivoted plates 158, 159, respectively, of which the latter plate is pivoted away from the former to commence extrusion, the walls of the plates 158, 159 which define the slot being profiled both along the length of the slot and through the depth of the slot between entry and exit of the material so that the combined effect is to give a substantially uniplanar surface to the extruded disc of material. In a preferred embodiment, alternate pink and yellow cakes, cut into two parts by a cutter blade (193, Fig. 5, not shown), are released, in each of two files on a feeding conveyor belt, by a reciprocated pivoted gate 191, to be received between cross bars 154 on each of a pair of side-byside endless slat conveyers 155 incorporating endless chains 109 which are driven intermittently and alternately by two combined Whitworth and cam mechanisms, each 180 degrees out of phase with the other, and mounted on the same shaft 161. Each Whitworth mechanism comprises a rotating eccentric pin 115 engaging a slot 160 in one arm 113 of a two-armed lever, and oscillates the other arm 112 of the lever to reciprocate a sprag 156 longitudinally. Each cam mechanism comprises a follower level 163 and bell-cranks 164, 165, and causes a guide 166 for sprag 156 to be oscillated vertically so that the two sprags 156 are lowered on their return stroke, spring- loaded sprags 157 being also oscillated vertically in opposite phase by the bell-crank 164 so that they hold the chains stationary between successive driving strokes of the sprags 156, As each cut cake reaches position III, a suction head 171, carried on a horizontal tubular arm 172 which is pivoted on a vertical axis, engages the top part of the cake. Suction is then applied to the head 171 and the arm 172 is swung through 180 degrees to deposit the top part on the bottom part of a cake at position VI which has been creamed previously by the extruding head 130 at position V, so that filled cakes having differently coloured top and bottom parts are produced. At position IV each cake is checked by a photo-electric device associated with incident and reflected light beams 105, 106. The extruding head 130 is operated in timed relation with the operation of a slide valve 115 controlling the feed of cream from pump cylinders 103. The slide valve causes cream to pass alternately to two creaming heads associated with the two side-by-side slat conveyers 155 during the stationary periods between their alternate forward movements.