GB895733A - Improvements in or relating to continuous rod cigarette-making machines - Google Patents

Abstract

895,733. Cigarette - making machines. USINES DECOUFLE. May 15, 1958 [Oct. 28, 1957], No. 15705/58. Class 130. [Also in Group XXVIII] Cut tobacco thrown by a picker 34, Fig. 1, past a rotating perforated cylinder 46 is caused by air passing into the cylinder to follow an arcuate path therearound at at least undiminished speed into a duct 53 where it is accelerated and carried to form a filler on the under-surface of a perforated nickel conveyer band 58 by an air stream passing therethrough to a suction chamber 59. The air movements are caused by low and high pressure fans 76, 80, Fig. 3, having suction conduits 75, 79, connected to the members 46, 59, and delivery conduits 61, 60, deflector grids 77, 81 and cyclones 78, 82, discharging to the conduit 79 and to atmosphere respectively, being provided to eliminate dust. The conduit 60 has a perforated exit flap 65 of expanded aluminium with orifices shaped to direct the air flow to the right. The conduit 61 has an exit 63. The air from both conduits passes through a perforated wall 67 adjustably covered by a pivoting shutter 69. Air and dust passing into the cylinder 46 move past stationary guides 47, 48 and out into three curved ducts 43 . . . 45, Fig. 2, leading in parallel to the conduit 75. Air passes upwardly between a guide 38 and a carded picker feed drum 31 to prevent shorts passing down therebetween. The drum 31 has a refuser roller 32 and comb 36 coating therewith. A scraper 56 removes tobacco from the cylinder 46. A receptacle 68 receives stem portions which are undeflected by the air movement. Vanes 73 and walls 74 of the duct 53 give the air stream a component of movement in the feed direction of the band 58 approximately equal to the band speed. The cylinder 46 so rotates that its surface presented to the tobacco moves therewith but at a faster speed. In Fig. 13 (not shown), the wall 67 is replaced by a conveyer band on to which the picked tobacco falls and which carries it into the range of action of the perforated cylinder 46, on the surface of which some of the tobacco may travel. The filler formed on the band 58 may be continuous but in Fig. 14 double-length filter plugs are taken by pushers 202 of a wheel 201 from a fluted drum 203 and transferred with the aid of a stripper 206 to the band 58 on which tobacco is subsequently deposited therebetween to form a composite filler. The Specification also describes the means disclosed in Specification 895,735 for transferring the tobacco on the band 58 to a continuous cigarette paper web. Specification 895,734 also is referred to.