GB343292A - Improvements in apparatus for manufacturing small articles such as pills or the like from plastic material - Google Patents

Abstract

343,292. Cutting and moulding pills &c. in cylinder and rolling machines. SUMNER, W., Dunelin, Broadgreen Road, Liverpool. Jan. 31, 1930, No. 3300. [Class 87 (ii).] Apparatus for manufacturing pills, pellets, or like small articles includes means for preparing a strip of plastic material of regulatable uniform thickness, a wheel with tubes forming pockets for cutting through the strip and removing portions therefrom and fluid pressure means for subsequently expelling the severed portions from the tubes. A strip of material of regulatable thickness is delivered from the hopper 1 by the toothed wheels 2 and the adjustable hinged knife 4 regulated by the screw 6. The strip is divided next into a series of bands by passing between the rollers 11, 12, being thus separated and retained in the recesses 15 of the flanged roller 12. A final gauging in regard to thickness is given by the roller 17 which is eccentrically mounted so that it can be set within fine limits. Tubes 21 projecting from the drum 13 cut out portions of the bands of material and carry them round until the inner ends of the tubes register singly or in rows with an air-pressure nozzle 28. The pressure expels the pellets which strike against a resilient surface 37 before falling into the delivery hopper 36. Pills would then be delivered to rolling-machines to form them into spherical shape. Reference is made also to a leather and metal air-seal between the nozzle 28 and the interior of the drum, to the removability and adjustability of the drum 13 through the medium of the levers 44, cam 45 and hand-wheel 48, and to the adjustability of the roller 11 through the medium of the levers 49 and set screws 50. The tubes 21 may be arranged helically on the drum so that only one at a time registers with the air-pressure apparatus.