GB2161693A - Supplying air to and/or generating suction in tobacco processing machines - Google Patents
Supplying air to and/or generating suction in tobacco processing machines Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- GB2161693A GB2161693A GB08518184A GB8518184A GB2161693A GB 2161693 A GB2161693 A GB 2161693A GB 08518184 A GB08518184 A GB 08518184A GB 8518184 A GB8518184 A GB 8518184A GB 2161693 A GB2161693 A GB 2161693A
- Authority
- GB
- United Kingdom
- Prior art keywords
- speed
- processing machine
- motor
- variable
- capacity
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Withdrawn
Links
- 241000208125 Nicotiana Species 0.000 title claims description 19
- 235000002637 Nicotiana tabacum Nutrition 0.000 title claims description 19
- 235000019504 cigarettes Nutrition 0.000 claims abstract description 19
- 238000012544 monitoring process Methods 0.000 claims abstract description 8
- 230000004044 response Effects 0.000 claims abstract description 8
- 238000000034 method Methods 0.000 claims description 13
- 230000009467 reduction Effects 0.000 claims description 10
- 230000001105 regulatory effect Effects 0.000 claims description 4
- 238000004804 winding Methods 0.000 description 6
- 239000002245 particle Substances 0.000 description 4
- 230000008901 benefit Effects 0.000 description 3
- 239000000463 material Substances 0.000 description 3
- 230000003750 conditioning effect Effects 0.000 description 2
- 230000002950 deficient Effects 0.000 description 2
- 230000014759 maintenance of location Effects 0.000 description 2
- 230000001133 acceleration Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000009471 action Effects 0.000 description 1
- 235000019506 cigar Nutrition 0.000 description 1
- 239000004020 conductor Substances 0.000 description 1
- 238000010276 construction Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000011109 contamination Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000001816 cooling Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000003111 delayed effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 238000001914 filtration Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000004519 manufacturing process Methods 0.000 description 1
- 238000012806 monitoring device Methods 0.000 description 1
- 230000002093 peripheral effect Effects 0.000 description 1
- 230000005855 radiation Effects 0.000 description 1
- 239000000779 smoke Substances 0.000 description 1
Classifications
-
- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
- A24C—MACHINES FOR MAKING CIGARS OR CIGARETTES
- A24C5/00—Making cigarettes; Making tipping materials for, or attaching filters or mouthpieces to, cigars or cigarettes
-
- A—HUMAN NECESSITIES
- A24—TOBACCO; CIGARS; CIGARETTES; SIMULATED SMOKING DEVICES; SMOKERS' REQUISITES
- A24C—MACHINES FOR MAKING CIGARS OR CIGARETTES
- A24C5/00—Making cigarettes; Making tipping materials for, or attaching filters or mouthpieces to, cigars or cigarettes
- A24C5/14—Machines of the continuous-rod type
- A24C5/31—Machines of the continuous-rod type with special arrangements coming into operation during starting, slowing-down or breakdown of the machine, e.g. for diverting or breaking the continuous rod
Abstract
The supply of air and/or suction in a cigarette making machine is increased and reduced in response to changes in the speed of the machine. This may be accomplished by monitoring the speed of the machine and automatically reducing the speed of a polyphase motor of air supply/suction means when the machine is temporarily arrested or is operated at less than normal speed, e.g., immediately after starting. <IMAGE>
Description
SPECIFICATION
Method and apparatus for supplying air to tobacco processing machines
The invention relates to tobacco processing machines in general, especially to cigarette making machines, and more particularly to improvements in methods and apparatus for supplying compressed air to and/or for generating suction in such machines.Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in methods and apparatus wherein one or more blowers or analogous air circulating devices are used to furnish compressed air to plenum chambers, nozzles, cooling conduits orthe like and/or to evacuate air from suction cups, suction chambers, suction ports and the like in machines for the making of filter rod sections, in tobacco comminuting and/or conveying and/or conditioning machines, or in machines for the making of plain or filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos or other types of smokers' products. For the sake of simplicity, reference will be had primarily to cigarette making machines and filter tipping machines but the invention can be practiced with equal or similar advantage in all other aforeenumerated machines for the processing of tobacco and related materials including material for filtering tobacco smoke.
It is well known that cigarette making machines require large quantities of air for the establishment of pressure differentials (e.g., for adequately holding plain cigarettes and/or filter rod sections in the flutes or at the peripheries of rotary drumshaped conveyors as well as for attracting tobacco shreds or fibrous filter material to a foraminous conveyor), for expulsion of satisfactory or defective rod-shaped articles from their respective paths by streams of compressed air, for agitating tobacco particles during transport through one or more conditioning chambers, for transferring tobacco particles or rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry between successive conveyors, for classifying tobacco particles according to size and/or weight, for propelling tobacco particles against selected portions of a tobacco stream growing conveyor, for pneumatically conveying files of rod-shaped articles between spaced-apart machines of a production line and for a host of additional purposes. The consumption of air (and more specifically the need for air at elevated pressure or at below atmospheric pressure) is especiaily pronounced in modern high-speed cigarette makers. This will be readily appreciated by bearing in mind that a modern filter tipping or cigarette making machine can turn out well in excess of one hundred articles per second and, if such articles must be attracted to the surfaces bounding peripheral flutes in a rapidly rotating ported drum-shaped conveyor, suction in the ports of the conveyor must be very pronounced (at least when the conveyor is driven at the normal speed) in order to prevent the escape of articles from the flutes under the action of centrifugal force.In presently known machines, the blower whose intake draws air from the ports of a fluted rotary drumshaped conveyor is driven at full speed during normal operation as well as during acceleration, deceleration and temporary stoppage of the machine in order to ensure adequate retention of the articles in their flutes. This entails the consumption of considerable quantities of energy under circumstances when a less pronounced pressure differential would suffice to ensure adequate retention of articles, e.g., during temporary stoppage of a drum-shaped cbnveyor when the magnitude of centrifugal force is zero.
One feature of the invention resides in the provision of an apparatus for supplying air to a variable-speed tobacco processing machine, particularly to a variable-speed cigarette making machine. The apparatus comprises at least one variable-capacity blower, and means for regulating the capacity of the blower as a function of the speed of the processing machine. The blower includes a variable-speed rotary component and the regulating means comprises a variable-speed prime mover for the rotary component of the blower and means for varying the speed of the prime mover in dependency on changes in the speed of the processing machine.
The prime mover can comprise a polyphase motor, particularly a reversible-polarity polyphase electric motor, and the speed varing means can comprise signal generating means (e.g., a tachometer generator) for monitoring the speed of the motor. The speed varying means can further comprise at least one source of reference signals which denote the lower of two different rotational speeds of the motor and means for comparing such reference signals with the signals from the tachometer generator and for generating additional signals denoting the difference (e.g., zero difference) between the reference signals and the signals from the tachometer generator. The speed varying means can further comprise means for delaying (for a preselected interval of time) the reduction of the speed of the motor following a reduction of the speed of the processing machine.
Another feature of the invention resides in the provision of a method of supplying air to a variablespeed tobacco processing machine, e.g., to a cigarette making machine, by means of a variablecapacity air circulating device (such as the aforementioned blower). The method comprises the steps of monitoring the speed of the processing machine and varying the capacity of the air circulating device as a function of changes in the speed of the processing machine. The varying step can comprise reducing the capacity of the air circulating device in response to temporary stoppage of the processing machine and/or in response to a mere reduction of the speed of the processing machine.Still further, the method can comprise the step of delaying the reduction of the capacity of the air circulating device for a preselected interval of time in response to a reduction of the speed of the processing machine.
The novel features which are considered as characteristic of the invention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. The improved apparatus itself, however, both as to its construction and its mode of operation, together with additional features and advantages thereof, will be best understood upon perusal of the following detailed description of certain specific embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawing.
The single Figure of the drawing is a diagrammatic view of a portion of a processing machine and of the circuit for the polyphase motor which drives the rotary input element of the variable-capacity blower for circulation of air in the machine.
The apparatus of the present invention is installed in or combined with a cigarette making machine which comprises a conveyor 5 serving to transport a continuous cigarette rod 2 from the wrapping station to a cutoff which subdivides the rod 2 into a file of discrete plain cigarettes of unit length or multiple unit length. The conveyor 5 is driven by a variable-speed motor 10 which is designed to reduce the speed of the conveyor 2 from a normal speed to a lesser speed during certain first stages of operation and to temporarily arrest the conveyor 5 during different second stages of operation, e.g., to form a splice between the ends of two cigarette paper webs, to remove a length of defective cigarette rod and/or under certain other circumstances.
The means for circulating air in the cigarette making machine (e.g., in the distributor which may be of the type disclosed in commonly owned U.S.
Pat. No. 4,175,570 to Heitmann or in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,185,644 to Heitmann petal.) comprises a variable-capacity blower 8 whose rotary input component or element 13 is driven by a variable-speed motor 7, preferably a reversiblepolarity polyphase electric motor with windings 7a and 7b.
The motor 10 for the conveyor 5 is accelerated from a lower (e.g., zero) speed to a higher or normal speed as soon as a photoelectronic monitoring device including a light source 1 and a transducer 14 detects the presence of a cigarette rod 2 on the adjacent portion of the conveyor 5. The output of the transducer 14 then transmits a signal to an evaluating circuit 3 which causes a shift register 4 to energize or deenergize a relay KO with a preselected delay whereby the relay KO changes the position of the movable contact 6 of a switch 15 which is installed in conductor means 16 between an energy source 17 on the one hand and a relay K2 and one input of an AND gate 9 on the other hand.The relay
KO is further in circuit with the motor 10 and causes the latter to drive the conveyor 5 at the higher or normal speed as soon as it receives a signal from the last stage of the shift register 4.
When the relay KO causes the contact 6 to assume the broken-line position 6', the relay K2 changes its condition and energizes the high-speed winding 7B of the variable-speed polyphase motor 7 for the
input element 13 of the variable-capacity blower 8.
The RPM of the input element 13 is then increased from a lower value n1 to a higher value n2. The
blower 8 then operates at full capacity to ensure the
circulation of adequate quantities of air in the
machine which includes the conveyor 5 and
variable-speed motor 10.
When the motor 10 is arrested, e.g., because the
rod 2 ceases to interrupt the beam of radiation
issuing from the source 1, the relay KO returns the
contact 6 to the solid-line position so that the energy
source 17 transmits a signal to the corresponding
input of the AND gate 9. The other input of the gate 9
receives signals from the output of a signal
comparing stage 11. One input of the stage 11 is
connected with a source 18 of reference signals
denoting a predetermined lower rotational speed nl of the motor 7, and the other input of the stage 11 is
connected with the output of a tachometer
generator 12 which monitors the speed n of the
motor 7. The output of the stage 11 transmits a
signal to a further relay K1 when n equals or is less
than nt, i.e., when the actual RPM of the motor 7
matches the desired lower RPM.The relay K1 then
energizes the lower-RPM winding 7a of the motor 7.
The illustrated circuit prevents the generation of a
pronounced breaking current and/or braking
moment. The motor 7 drives the input element 13 at
the lower speed but the blower 8 is still capable of
circulating sufficient quantities or air for proper
operation of the machine at the lower speed or
during temporary stoppage.
The improved method and apparatus render it
possible to achieve substantial savings of energy for
operation of the blower 8. Furthermore, the
generation of noise is reduced in response to a
reduction of the speed and/or stoppage of the motor 10, and the contamination of the machine is reduced
as soon as the input element begins to rotate at the
lower speed nl because the blower circulates air at
a reduced speed. Another important advantage of
the improved method and apparatus is that the
speed of the input element 13 is changed
automatically in response to changes of RPM of the
motor 10.
Another means for a delayed switch-over from the
winding 7a to the winding 7b is a shift register 19 or
another suitable time delay device.
The shift register 19 (broken-line) is connected on
the one hand with one input of the AND gate 9 and
on the other hand with a switch 20 which is provided
to deenergise the motor 10. This means for time
delay replaces the means 11, 12, 18 for monitoring
the speed of motor 7.
The lower RPM n1 of the input element 13 can be
readily selected in such a way that the capacity of
the blower 8 when the winding 7a is energized is
amply sufficient to ensure proper operation of all
aggregates which require compressed air or which
operate by suction while the machine is operated at
less than normal speed or is brought to a full stop.
Claims (13)
1. Apparatus for supplying air to a variable-speed
tobacco processing machine, particularly to a
cigarette making machine, comprising a variable
capacity blower; and means for regulating the
capacity of the blower as a function of the speed of
the processing machine.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said blower comprises a variable-speed rotary component and said regulating means comprises a variable-speed prime mover for said component and means for varying the speed of said prime mover as a function of changes in the speed of the processing machine.
3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein said prime mover comprises a polyphase motor.
4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein said motor is a reversible-polarity polyphase electric motor.
5. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein said speed varying means includes signal generating means for monitoring the speed of said motor.
6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein said speed varying means further comprises a source of reference signals denoting the lower of two different rotational speeds of said motor, and means for comparing such reference signals with the signals from said monitoring means and for generating additional signals denoting, the difference between said reference signals and the signals from said monitoring means.
7. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein said speed varying means includes means for reducing the speed of said motor with a predetermined delay following a reduction of the speed of the processing machine.
8. A method of supplying air to a variable-speed tobacco processing machine, particularly to a cigarette making machine, by means of a variablecapacity air circulating device, comprising the steps of monitoring the speed of the processing machine; and varying the capacity of the air circulating device as a function of changes of the speed of the processing machine.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein said varying step includes reducing the capacity of the air circulating device in response to temporary stoppage of the processing machine.
10. The method of claim 8, wherein said varying step includes reducing the capacity of the air circulating device in response to a reduction of the speed of the processing machine.
11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of delaying the reduction of capacity of the air circulating device following a reduction of the speed of the processing machine.
12. Apparatus for supplying air to a variablespeed tobacco processing machine, substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
13. A method of supplying air to a variable-speed tobacco processing machine, substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| DE3426475 | 1984-07-18 |
Publications (2)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| GB8518184D0 GB8518184D0 (en) | 1985-08-21 |
| GB2161693A true GB2161693A (en) | 1986-01-22 |
Family
ID=6240962
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| GB08518184A Withdrawn GB2161693A (en) | 1984-07-18 | 1985-07-18 | Supplying air to and/or generating suction in tobacco processing machines |
Country Status (3)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| JP (1) | JPS6135776A (en) |
| GB (1) | GB2161693A (en) |
| IT (1) | IT1185274B (en) |
Cited By (5)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP0290756A1 (en) * | 1987-05-15 | 1988-11-17 | SASIB S.p.A. | Method and device for controlling the vacuum in a succession of suction conveyors |
| US5594312A (en) * | 1994-03-14 | 1997-01-14 | Landis & Gyr Technology Innovation Ag | Apparatus having an automatic firing arrangement |
| EP0879761A1 (en) | 1997-05-21 | 1998-11-25 | Focke & Co. (GmbH & Co.) | Method and device for handling blanks |
| EP2111766A1 (en) * | 2008-04-24 | 2009-10-28 | Hauni Maschinbau AG | Method for operating a machine for the tobacco industry and corresponding machine |
| CN107019237A (en) * | 2017-06-07 | 2017-08-08 | 红塔烟草(集团)有限责任公司 | A kind of smoked sheet finished product automatic weighing feed supplementing device |
Families Citing this family (1)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN108552582B (en) * | 2018-04-10 | 2021-04-13 | 红云红河烟草(集团)有限责任公司 | Energy-saving lean control method for wind wire feeding |
Citations (2)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB1397846A (en) * | 1972-09-13 | 1975-06-18 | British American Tobacco Co | Tobacco feeding systems for cigarette production |
| GB2083656A (en) * | 1980-08-29 | 1982-03-24 | Sasib Spa | An automatic control device for adjusting the suction exerted by suction flutes in cigarette transfer drums |
-
1985
- 1985-07-16 JP JP15528785A patent/JPS6135776A/en active Pending
- 1985-07-17 IT IT21597/85A patent/IT1185274B/en active
- 1985-07-18 GB GB08518184A patent/GB2161693A/en not_active Withdrawn
Patent Citations (2)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB1397846A (en) * | 1972-09-13 | 1975-06-18 | British American Tobacco Co | Tobacco feeding systems for cigarette production |
| GB2083656A (en) * | 1980-08-29 | 1982-03-24 | Sasib Spa | An automatic control device for adjusting the suction exerted by suction flutes in cigarette transfer drums |
Cited By (7)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP0290756A1 (en) * | 1987-05-15 | 1988-11-17 | SASIB S.p.A. | Method and device for controlling the vacuum in a succession of suction conveyors |
| US5594312A (en) * | 1994-03-14 | 1997-01-14 | Landis & Gyr Technology Innovation Ag | Apparatus having an automatic firing arrangement |
| EP0879761A1 (en) | 1997-05-21 | 1998-11-25 | Focke & Co. (GmbH & Co.) | Method and device for handling blanks |
| EP0879761B1 (en) * | 1997-05-21 | 2003-03-26 | Focke & Co. (GmbH & Co.) | Method and device for handling blanks |
| EP2111766A1 (en) * | 2008-04-24 | 2009-10-28 | Hauni Maschinbau AG | Method for operating a machine for the tobacco industry and corresponding machine |
| CN101564202A (en) * | 2008-04-24 | 2009-10-28 | 豪尼机械制造股份公司 | Method for running machine used in tobacco industry and the machine thereof |
| CN107019237A (en) * | 2017-06-07 | 2017-08-08 | 红塔烟草(集团)有限责任公司 | A kind of smoked sheet finished product automatic weighing feed supplementing device |
Also Published As
| Publication number | Publication date |
|---|---|
| GB8518184D0 (en) | 1985-08-21 |
| IT8521597A0 (en) | 1985-07-17 |
| JPS6135776A (en) | 1986-02-20 |
| IT1185274B (en) | 1987-11-04 |
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Legal Events
| Date | Code | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| WAP | Application withdrawn, taken to be withdrawn or refused ** after publication under section 16(1) |