GB647494A - Improvements relating to bottle cap applying machines - Google Patents

Abstract

647,494. Filling and capping bottles. MID-WEST BOTTLE CAP CO. Aug. 6, 1947, No. 21471. Convention date, July 15, 1941. [Class 125(ii)] In a machine for applying hood caps to bottles, the caps are fed singly from a magazine by means of a suction cup cap selector into a shoot down which they travel disposed vertically on edge, the cap selector being actuated through mechanical linkage by a bottle detector disposed in the path of the bottles moving towards a capping station, and the lower end of the shoot being open and having depending projections for supporting engagement with a cap which has passed down the shoot, so that as a bottle is being traversed beneath the chute the head of the bottle passes between said projections and engages with the inner surface of the rim of the cap and draws the cap out of the shoot. As shown, bottles 25 to be filled and capped are transferred from a rotary table 23 to bottle stools 33 on a continuously rotating table 32 of a filling machine by an intermittently-rotating star wheel (not shown). After filling, the bottles are returned by the star wheel to table 23, passing intermediately beneath a capping head 171. In passing from table 32 to the capping position, a bottle takes up a hood cap resting on projections 163, 164 at the foot of a shoot 147, 148, Fig. 3, and at the capping position a cap disc is forced into the bottle mouth on top of the hood, the skirt of which is then compressed around the bottle mouth 173, Fig. 1. The hood-feeding mechanism is operated when a wheel 94 on an arm 93 is forced outwards by engagement with the neck of a bottle being filled. Movement of arm 93 acts, via an overtravel connection 92 which yields with oversize bottles, shaft 87, arm 86, link 84 and lever 81, 82 to reciprocate a hood-selecting piston 103 carrying a suction cup 107, 109 connected by a valve 104 to a suction tube 105. A magazine 116 carries a stack of hoods 118 supported on inner and outer spring fingers 133, 138. As piston 103 retracts it draws the lowermost hood over fingers 133, 138 with a rotary motion due to the engagement of a helical groove in the piston with a fixed pin 66, the rotary motion assisting in the separation of the hood from the stack. When valve 104 engages the end of cylinder 58 it moves against a spring 106a to cut off the suction cup from suction pipe 105 and connect it to outside atmosphere; the hood, detached from the cup by a rubber band 146 on arms 144, drops down the shoot 147, 148 to rest on projections 163, 164 where it is retained by curtains 165, 165a of chain fabric which act to wipe the cap onto a passing bottle (Fig. 12), curtain 165 dropping back before the cap is fully applied to retain the succeeding cap in the shoot.