GB529976A - Improvements in or relating to means for stacking or feeding articles, such as glassware, into annealing lehrs, furnaces and the like - Google Patents

Abstract

529,976. Delivering bottles to lehrs &c. BRITISH HARTFORD - FAIRMONT SYNDICATE, Ltd., and LAWSON, A. May 25, 1939, No. 15568. [Class 78 (i)] A stacking or leading apparatus for lehrs or the like which forms a portable unit transferable to different lehrs, comprises a feed conveyer which carries the ware to the loading or stacking position, a push-bar for transferring it from the feed to the lehr conveyer, and mechanism for operating and timing and controlling the movement of the push bar. As illustrated, the apparatus is mounted on a carriage 1 furnished with screw jacks for raising the wheels clear of the ground. The bottles are brought by a conveyer 120, Fig. 2, from a forming-machine and delivered singly by the intermittentlyrotating disc 87 to the stacker conveyer 5 carried on the portable unit, from which a pusher-device 33 transfers a row at a time to the lehr conveyer 60. The stacker conveyer is driven from the motor 6 through infinitelyvariable change-speed gear 7 with indicating disc 13 and pointer 14. Operation of the pusher-mechanism.-The pusher bar 33, which is normally below the level of the lehr conveyer 60, is moved horizontally to effect the transfer, then raised clear of the next row of bottles which is forming behind it, again retracted horizontally and finally lowered to its acting position behind the next row of bottles, all these movements being effected automatically by fluid pressure and in timed relation. The pushing-apparatus is mounted on a wheeled carriage 17 which traverses a rail track on the unit when fluid is admitted to the cylinder 35, Figs. 3 and 8, thus causing the racked piston rod 36 to rotate the shaft 38 connected to the carriage by crank- and-connecting-rod mechanism. The push-bar 33 is carried by an inverted U-shaped framing with unequal arms, the longer arm forming a piston rod which is raised and lowered when fluid is admitted to and exhausted from the cylinder 19. The U-shaped framing also carries a neck-engaging member 100 to prevent the bottles toppling over during transfer. Automatic control of the sequence of operations in timed relation.-As the row of bottles piles up on the conveyer 5, the leading bottle eventually strikes a trip rod 61, Fig. 1, which closes a mercury switch and operates a solenoidcontrolled valve which in turn operates a main valve admitting air to the cylinder 35 and causing the carriage to perform its outward stroke and the pusher-bar to transfer the row of bottles. At the end of the forward stroke of the carriage a projection 47, Fig. 1 on the crank pin 42 engages a sleeve valve and moves it axially to admit fluid to the cylinder 19 and so raise the pusher-bar clear of the next row of bottles which is forming behind it. At the completion of this stroke the member 50 on the lower tie-bar 24 of the pusher-mechanism operates a bell-crank on the carriage and so reverses the main valve to retract the carriage, and finally, at the end of the retraction, the projection 47 again reverses its valve to lower the pusher-bar behind the next row of bottles, thus preparing the pusher - bar mechanism for another cycle of operations. In addition to the above operations a sliding shaft 54, Fig. 1, operated axially in one direction by a fluidpressure valve and in the other by a spring 57, carries three plates 53 which seal the openings in the roof 52 through which the pusher-mechanism passes, when the latter is in its normal position. These plates are withdrawn to one side automatically to allow the pusher-mechanism to make its forward and return traverse.