GB681471A - Improvements in or relating to machines for treating the surfaces of containers - Google Patents

Abstract

681,471. Printing &c. on curved surfaces. TIMSONS, Ltd., and TIMSON, E. A. March 21, 1950 [March 22, 1949], No. 7760/49. Class 100 (ii). In a machine for printing, embossing or otherwise marking the curved surfaces of containers, e.g. rigid or collapsable metal, paper, card or plastic tubes for pastes &c. the containers are presented in turn to a printing &c. means by mandrels held by chucks equi-spaced around an intermittently rotated turret and rotatable therein about axes parallel to the turret axis, and are then engaged by a doffing device movable towards and away from the turret in timed relation therewith to effect partial or complete withdrawal. Fig. 1 shows a turret 5 in course of a 60 degrees step of clockwise rotation (produced, according to the Provisional Specification, by Geneva mechanism); at a station between 4<SP>2</SP> and 4<SP>3</SP> containers 3 are manually (or automatically according to the Provisional Specification) loaded onto mandrels 4 carried by chucks 6; at the station before 4' they are printed by the plate 2 of a rotary printing machine 1, and at the station between 4' and 4' they are removed by a device 8. This comprises a rubber &c. suction nozzle 43 on a carriage 9, Fig. 2, reciprocated along fixed rods 10 by a chain 13 passing round sprockets 16 (adjustable for chain tensioning) and 15 (driven by a quadrant gear 25 pivoted at 26 and oscillated by a connection 29, 30 from a crank disc 31, Fig. 1, driven in synchronism with the movements of the turret 5). The nozzle 43 is longitudinally adjustable on a block 47, which is secured to a tubular shaft mounted transversely in the carriage 9 and serving, with rubber &c. tubes 40, 42, as a conduit to connect a vacuum source to the nozzle 43; towards the end of the withdrawal movement of the carriage 9 from the turret 5 this tubular shaft is rotated (against a spring loading according to the Provisional Specification) through 90 degrees by engagement of a forked arm 49 thereon with a fixed pin 51, thus bringing the withdrawn container 3 into a vertical position, Fig. 5, at which point a fixed rod 60 opens a spring-loaded flap valve 55 on the tubular shaft to break the vacuum whereby the container 3 is released onto a belt, chain or other conveyer. This conveyer may be in the form of a rotary table 63 with receiving pins 64, Figs. 1 and 2; as shown the table is intermittently rotated in synchronism with the movements of the turret 5 by a ratchet and pawl 65, 66 connected by a rod 67 to the quadrant gear 25.