GB1432371A - Collation of articles - Google Patents

Abstract

1432371 Conveying and transferring articles; packaging apparatus ROSE FORGROVE Ltd 2 July 1973 [5 July 1972] 31561/72 Headings B8A and B8C [Also in Division F2] Articles such as flat bags are fed in succession to a receiving staion 54 through which pass successive pairs of grippers 19 mounted on a rotatable collating wheel 11, the members 21, 22 of each gripper 19 being pivotally mounted relative to the wheel 11 and also being in connection with cams 43, 44 and 46, 47 respectively such that as each pair of grippers 19 approaches the station 54 its members 21, 22 are urged apart and a predetermined number of articles are fed in succession by a pair of nip rollers 53 on to the leading member 21 of the pair in superposed relationship to form a collated batch, the batch so formed then being engaged by the other member 22 of the pair as the pair 19 moves out of the filling station 54 and the collated batch is then transferred by the wheel 11 to a receiving station 63 at which the grippers 19 discharge the batch carried thereby into cartons 66 located on a conveyer 64. The wheel 11 comprises a spider (16) terminating in a plurality of radially disposed bearing lugs (17), Fig. 2 (not shown), on each of which lugs is pivotally mounted a support (23) for a gripper member (21) of a pair, and pivotally mounted on each support (23) is a support (25) for the other gripper (22) of the pair, Fig. 3 (not shown), a pair of springs (28), 41 extending between the supports (23, 25) and a ring encircling the shaft of the wheel 11, the springs being operative to yieldably urge the gripper members of each pair towards each other. Mounted on each support (23) is a pair of cam-follower rollers (27, 31) which engage respectively with the cams 32, 44 and a further pair of cam-follower rollers (38, 39) is mounted on each support (25) to engage the cams 46, 47. Fig. 3 (not shown). The engagement of the rollers with their associated cams not only produces the urging apart of the gripper members of each pair 19 on their approach to and during their passage through the station 54 but the cam (43) which is associated with the gripper members 21 maintains that member of each pair at a substantially constant angle during its movement through the receiving station 54. In the embodiment described the collating wheel 11 is coupled directly to a known type of bag-forming and filling machine in which filled bags are delivered as a continuous connected chain to a rotatable cutting device 52 from which the individual severed bags 51 are seized by the pair of nip rollers 53 which rotate at a rate higher than that of the cutting device 52 so as to space the bags as they are delivered at the receiving station 54 where the leading member 21 of the pair of grippers 19 for the time being passing through the station 54 is positioned substantially horizontally below the nip rollers 53.