GB912482A - Method and apparatus for packing and unpacking open crates of bottles - Google Patents

Abstract

912,482. Conveyers. STEINLE, R. April 1, 1959 [April 11, 1958; Sept. 4, 1958], No. 10962/59. Class 78 (1). [Also in Group XVII] A machine for crating or uncrating bottles comprises arms rotatable about a horizontal axis and carrying at their extremities gripper heads which lift a group of bottles from a crate or conveyer and deposit it on a conveyer or in a crate. In one embodiment, Figs. 1, 2, filled crates 5 pass from a conveyer 1 to a continuously moving conveyer 1<SP>1</SP>, under the control of a stop 2. The gripper heads 3 are carried on a star-wheel 8 and have projections 4 which engage a crate to synchronize its movement with that of the head as the grippers enter the crate and withdraw the bottles. When the bottle group has been carried through 360 degrees, it is released on the conveyer 1<SP>1</SP> and passes through guides 9 to conveyers 11, 12 which form a single row leaving the machine. Gearing and chains 16, 16a, 17, retain the heads 3 horizontal. In a further embodiment, Fig. 5, the gripper heads 3 are carried on cylinders 30 movable along rods 29 extending from the arms of a starwheel 8 so that bottles may be transferred transversely to the direction of conveyer movement from one conveyer 1<SP>1</SP> to another 1<SP>11</SP> running parallel with it. In another embodiment, Fig. 8, two opposed arms of the wheel 8 each carry a pair of heads 3 rotatable about a vertical axis by rack-and-pinion means 34, 35. In this machine also, it is thus possible to transfer bottle groups from one to another of parallel conveyers 1, 1<SP>11</SP>. In all the above embodiments the height of the wheel 8 is adjustable, the wheel being carried on a vertically slidable rod 19 counter-balanced by a weight 20 (Fig. 1).