457,164. Endless-chain conveyers ; ratchet -conveyers. TRIGGS, W. W., 57, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. - (Meyer, G. J. ; 3048, North Marietta Avenue, and Meyer, G. L. N. ; 2933, North Lake Drive, both in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A.) March 23, 1936, No. 8679. [Class 78 (i)] [See also Groups XVII and XIX] In a machine for mixing the contents of bottles, cans, jars and like sealed containers after sealing and for testing for faulty seals and weak containers, the filled and capped bottles are fed in groups while standing vertically along a conveyer 42 to a cross conveyer 51, Fig. 5, then tilted horizontally on to a set of rollers 70 which rotate the bottles and mix the contents and are fed there along, then moved on to a belt conveyer 21 which carries them through liquid baths 11, 12, Figs. 1 and 2, wherein faulty seals are indicated by the escape of bubbles while a weak or faulty bottle will be cracked by the increased pressure generated therein. The machine is driven from a pulley 34 on a shaft 32 having a clutch 33 and geared to parallel horizontal shafts 31, 29, the gearwheels 30 on the shaft 29 having cam grooves 85, 95, 123, 138, controlling the other operations. The main conveyer 21 comprising side chains 22 is moved intermittently through the tanks 11, 12 by ratchet wheels 26, 27 on sprocket wheel shafts 13, 18 actuated by pawls 36, 39 operated by connecting rods 37, 40 from the gear-wheel 30. A star-wheel 47 having a notched periphery and a blank portion 48 is arranged on a vertical shaft 43 between the conveyers 42, 51 and is driven continuously by a dog 44 provided with screws 45 engaging a pin 46 on the star-wheel 47. The rollers 70 forming bottlereceiving troughs are mounted on a frame 61 which extends between the cross conveyer 51 and the main frame 10 and is mounted to swing about the axis of a shaft 63. The rollers 70 are driven from the shaft 63 which is driven bv a chain 76 from the shaft 32. The bottles on the conveyer 51 are pushed on to a tilting frame 78 by a pusher bar 86 and lowered by spaced fingers 80 on to the rollers 70. The frame 78 is operated by a rod 81 connected to a bell-crank 83 actuated by the cam groove 85 while the bar 86 which is carried by arms 87 secured to a rockshaft 88 is operated through a connecting rod 92 and arm 90 from a bell - crank 93 actuated by the cam groove 95. Fingers 107, 112, 113, Figs. 6 and 7, are provided to move the bottles along the rollers 70, the fingers 107 being mounted on a channel bar 104 and the fingers 112, 113 on rock-shafts 101, 102 mounted in bearings 99, 100 carried by members 98 reciprocated longitudinally on the frame bars 65. The bar 104 is connected by links 103 to the bearings 99. The shafts 101, 102 are connected by arms 108, 109 and a link 110 and are rocked by means of a rod 115 actuated from the cam groove 123. After passing through the tanks 11, 12 the bottles are unloaded from the conveyer 21 by a device 124 including a swinging bottle support 125 which moves the bottles to the upright position on a cross conveyer 126 and is operated by a link 127 actuated through a connecting rod 130 from the lower arm of a bell-crank lever 35. The bottles are pushed on to the support 125 by ejectors 132 carried in frames 133 which are moved periodically through a lever having a stud engaging the cam groove 138. The clutch 33 is controlled by a pivoted lever 139 connected to a pivoted arm 141 which is connected by a link 143 with a latch 144. The latch 144 may be released by a safety stop 147 connected at its lower end to one of the bars 65 and also connected to the bottle support 125, the stop being operated on incomplete transfer of a bottle from the rollers 70 to the conveyer 21 or from the conveyer 21 to the unloading device 125. A pump 154 delivers water through the pipe 156 to trays 157 above the bottles in the upper tank 12, the water draining down the trough 158 to the tank 11. In operation, sealed bottles are moved by the star-wheel 47 in batches from the conveyer 42 to the conveyer 51. They are then tilted by the members 78, 86 on to the rollers 70, are rotated thereby and are pushed therealong by the fingers 107, 112, transferred to the conveyer 21 by the fingers 113, conveyed step-by-step through the tank 11 where faulty seals are detected and through the tank 12 where the warm water from the trays 157 increases the gas pressure inside the bottles so as to crack any weak or faulty bottles and finally discharged on to the conveyer 126 by the swinging frame 125 and the ejectors 132.