GB909910A - Improvements in fruit-packing machines - Google Patents

Abstract

909,910. Packaging machines. RICHARDS, D. K. Oct. 20, 1960 [July 20, 1959], No. 24912/59. Class 94(1). A packaging machine for hard fruit &c. comprises a hopper for feeding a quantity of fruit into a tray, held in a horizontal moveable drawer, during an opening movement of the drawer, and discharging the filled tray through the base of the drawer into a carton beneath. Fruit is fed from the discharge shoot 12 of a grading machine into a closed hopper 5, the capacity of which is variable by adjustment of a plate 13 along rods 15 and which is pivotally mounted at 9a. The hopper has rollers 32 resting on cam faces 6 on the sides of the drawer 3. The drawer 3 containing a tray is pulled to the left, Fig. 1, permitting the hopper to tilt and discharge fruit into the tray beneath the plate 13. An extension 31 of the hopper prevents fruit entering it from the shoot 12 in this position. The bottom of the drawer comprises flaps 16 hinged at 17, which are lowered by means of a handle 18 operating levers 23-27, and enter the mouth of a carton beneath, guiding the loaded tray as it falls into it. The carton is supported on a platform 20, pivoted at 21. The flaps are then raised, the drawer closed and the cycle of operations repeated. When the carton is full, a handle 19 is pulled which inclines the platform 20, and the carton moves away along a conveyer 22.