NZ198297A - Applicator for one-piece ear tag - Google Patents

Description

I98297 NEW ZEALAND PATENTS ACT J 953 No.: 198 ,297 •Date: 8th September 19 81 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION "AN EAR TAG APPLICATOR" }${/We, LESLIE WALTER PORE, of 58 Broughton Street, Gore; JAMES ANTHONY KANE, of 60 View Street, Manapouri; and BARRY MICHAEL SCC)TT, of 15 Canning Street, Gore, all of New Zealand, and all are New Zealand citizens, hereby declare the invention for which we pray that a patent may be granted to jaaax/us, and the method by which it is to be performed, to be particularly described in and by the following statement: - 198297 The present invention relates to improvements in and/or relating to ear tagging and in particular to an ear tag applicator of a kind which positions and applies using coacting jaws or the like members an ear tag of a kind formed with a deformable shank having at one end thereof a female member and at the other end thereof an upstanding or the like male member lockably receivable in said female member.

In our New Zealand Patent Specification No.191261, (Australian Patent Application No.61058/80), the full content of which is herein included by way of reference, there is disclosed an ear tag of the kind abovementioned and an applicator capable of applying the same, the applicator being of a kind having a magazine for said tags and arranged such that the tags can be presented sequentially to receiving means which is capable in conjunction with actuating means of passing the male member of the ear tag through an animals ear and into a locking engagement with the female member thereof. In its broadest aspect the invention of our New Zealand Patent Specification No.191261 is an ear tag applicator gun for ear tags of a kind having a flexible and/or hinged shank with an aperture at or towards one end thereof and an upstanding male member retainable through said aperture at or towards the other end thereof, said gun comprising means defining a magazine capable of receiving or at least holding a plurality of such ear tags in a substantially stagger stack formation 198297 means to bias the plurality of ear tags disposed in use within said magazine means towards the discharge region thereof so as to enable the progressive substantially reproducible sequential presentation of each ear tag at that discharge region as each preceding tag is removed from the magazine at that region, loading means operative to remove one ear tag at a time from said magazine at the discharge region thereof, receiving means when empty of any ear tag capable of 10 receiving an ear tag removed from said magazine by said loading means and presenting the same in a substantially stable folded condition with the upstanding male member disposed towards said aperture whereby if desired an animal's ear can be interposed between said male member and aperture of said tag and actuating means operable to pass said male member of any such ear tag in said receiving means through the said aperture of the tag to locate the tag on an animal's ear if interposed appropriately between said male member and aper-20 ture, the construction and arrangement being such that said loading means can be operated to present an ear tag in said receiving means where it is held ready for said actuating means to be operated to tag an animal, and when said male member is passed through the aperture the tag can be removed by a relative movement between said animal and the gun, and the gun can be prepared for a subsequent tagging by operating the loading means to again present a « ready for tagging of a subsequent animal. 3 198297 The ear tag itself disclosed and claimed in our New Zealand Patent Specification No.191261 is defined as an ear tag comprising means defining a flexible and resilient shank which is substantially planar in nature, means defining an aperture at or toward one end of said shank, means defining an upstanding male member at or towards the other end of said shank having regard to the plane of said shank, said male member being receivable and retainable through said aperture, means to encourage the hinging about at least one hinging region between said male member and said aperture so as to encourage the disposition of said male member towards said aperture and means formed as part of the shank which act or acts to favour the arching of the shank to thereby reduce the arcuate locus of said male member relative to said aperture when said male member is being removed towards and into said aperture.

An applicator of the kind disclosed in our said New Zealand patent specification to be truly marketable must be reliable in usage yet also light to use. A feature therefore that requires some attention in and over the embodiment disclosed was the weight and bulk of the housing and the weight of the receiving and actuation means. If some means could be provided whereby the arc of the folding of the trailing female portion of the tag could be reduced significant weight savings could be made.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide means and/or methods applicable to meeting the abo-vementioned desiderata or which will at least provide the 198297 public with a useful choice.

Accordingly in one aspect the present invention consists in an ear tag applicator for ear tags of a kind having a flexible and/or hinged shank with an aperture at or towards one end thereof and an upstanding male member retainable through said aperture at or towards the other end thereof, said applicator.including a first jaw, a second jaw, said first and/or said second jaw being 10 movable towards the other when actuated to do so, actuation means to cause the relative movement between said jaws, means to feed a tag from a source thereof (preferably a magazine thereof) male member end first to at least one of several receiving conditions/ against said first jaw, ! means which coact with the tag received or being received by said first jaw to firstly elastically destabilise part of the female end region of the tag and secondly to cause the same to assume a tendency to flip to its tagging condition, 20 said means allowing the assumption of the tagging condition with the male member pointed substantially to the female member and with said first jaw acting on the male region and the second jaw acting or being capable of acting on the female region of the tag.

Preferably said source of ear tags is a magazine. Preferably said magazine holds a plurality of the tags in a stagger stack formation (preferably substantial-.! y as disclosed in our New Zealand Patent Specificatj-- 198297 or as disclosed in our New Zealand Patent Specification No.198299.

Preferably said first jaw is resiliently mounted.

Preferably said actuation means moves said second jaw only.

Preferably said first jaw is pivoted so that portions thereof first contacted by a tag can move much more than those portions thereof which when a tag is in its tagging condition will align with said male member.

Preferably a spring acts on a region of said first jaw away from its pivot such that under the action of a tag making initial contact therewith some movement about its pivot occurs against the resilience of the spring and subsequently the jaw is pivoted back to its initial condition or substantially thereto when the tag received therein is in its tagging condition.

Preferably the feeding means includes abutting means acting on the female end of the tag at the very end thereof. tion of a pivoted arm mounted from a reciprocable member, the j arrangement and construction being such that in use when said reciprocable member is advanced said pivoted arm abuts a tag at its end and moves the same towards said first jaw and as it approaches said first jaw tends to move downward about its pivot to assist the flip movement of the female portion into its position with said second jaw and such that when said reciprocable means is moved back from itsS^advanced Preferably said abutting means is an advance distal por- condition the downwardly pivoted arm rises upwards ' :S3®he 6 198297 a condition where it can engage again during a fresh advance movement with a further tag.

Preferably the arrangement of the feeding means is substantially as hereinafter described.

Preferably means is provided to act as a stop to counteract the spring acting on said first jaw to thereby limit its movement, said stop having a function which assists in the arcing of the female region initially during its desta-bilisation mode to thereby ensure a tendency to assume its tagging position.

In a further aspect the present inventionn may broadly be said to consist in the use of an applicator in accordance with the present invention.

From the foregoing it can be seen that to ensure the compactness of the jaw region the preferred resilient mounting of the first jaw is preferably such that the portion of the tag about which the flip movement of the female region is commenced will be at a position which means that the arc of the end of the female region is less with respect to the tagging position of the first jaw than otherwise would be the case.

One preferred form of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which Figure 1 is a view of a preferred tag for use in an applicator of the present invention looking down on the same to show a region of weakening at the centre of the shank, a female member at the left hand and an upstanding male member i 98297 at the right hand end, Figure 2 is a view A-A with respect to the tag of figure 1, Figure 3a is a diagrammatic view of an applicator in accordance with the present invention showing the top half of the housing thereof removed and showing for ease of explanation a plurality of tags in a magazine (the arrow towards the tags indicating the urging direction of a magazine spring) showing how sequentially the tags will be presented to a condition where if moved in the arrowed direction by a sliding member having a pivotted feeding arm (the sliding member and the pivotting arm being the preferred feeding means) can urge the topmost tag to the left, Figure 3b is a similar view to figure 3a but showing the feeding means some distance to the left and showing how the male member end of a tag deflects down and makes contact and is thus at one of its receiving conditions with respect to said first . jaw, the first jaw being pivoted about a pivot point some distance below the point of initial contact and being biassed to the right by a spring as depicted, Figure 3c shows the tag moved down more into its final receiving condition with said first jaw shown deflected backward by the tag under the action of the feeding means, the tag starting to be substantially destabilised, Figure 3d is a condition of the tag a brief instant after it has assumed a condition as in figure 3c which arises through a small movement of the feeding means to the left, it being seen how the female region of the tag commen- 198297 ces an arc which will create a flip commencement region of the tag much further left than would otherwise be the case had the first jaw not been deflected to the left about its pivot point against the action of the spring, Figure 3e shows how the female region of the tag has flipped downwards about an arc and is positioned such that a leftward movement of the second jaw will force the male member through the female member (the second jaw having a recess on its tag contacting region which will allow the receiving of the male member through the female member), the two arrows near the tag showing how the pivoted arm of the feeding means will swing down to ensure the female end region of the tag slips down over the retracted second jaw in a substantially guided fashion, it being seen also how the spring acting on the pivoted first jaw returns the same against its stop, Figure 3f shows how the male member is forced through the female member of a tag, for ease of explanation the feeding means being left in the same condition as it was in in Figure 3e, it being realized however that usually when a tag is being applied to an animal's ear as would have been the case shortly before it assumed the relative jaw condition as shown in figure 3f the feeding means could have been retracted to its original condition as shown in figure 3a, and Figure 3g shows how the pivoted arm of the feeding means rises back upwardly during the retraction of the reciprocable portion of the feeding means, the rising up preferably being through a coaction of a portion of the pivoted arm at or towards its distal end with portions of the housing, it being realised that the slide would be taken back to a condition as shown in figure 3a for a subsequent cyclh.

('■ ;;C%; • 198297 In the preferred form of the present invention the applicator is formed largely from a plastics material with the housing being formed in two parts by a moulding process in a suitable plastics material. The first jaw 1 is pivoted by a pivoting pin or the like 2 which will align substantially with the line of action during a tagging sequence (see figure 3f). The; first jaw 1 is preferably moulded from a plastics material and is biassed by a spring 3 against a stop 4. The second jaw 5 is arranged to be recip-10 rocable to the left and back to the condition depicted in figure 3a under the action of an actuation arm which would I extend downwardly . to the left of the magazine. Such an actuation arm (not shown) would be pivoted at point 6 so as to be capable of being pulled (preferably against a bias) towards the magazine portion of the housing to actuate the second jaw 5 to its condition as depicted in figure 3f. For this purpose a pivoted linkage (not shown) would be pivotted to the jaw 5 at 7 and would in turn be pivoted at a point to the right of pivot point 7 to the top portion of the 20 actuation arm (not shown).

The magazine feed is preferably as shown but with a magazine type spring arrangement urging the stagger stacked tags upwardly so that sequentially they are presented to a condition where the feeding means can advance them to a tagging condition which is substantially as depicted in figure 3e.

The feeding means itself comprises a sli< g on guides of the housing. Preferably means ^is provide*^to 198297 limit the reciprocal extent of the movement. Pivoted to the slide 8 at a pivot point 9 is a pivoted arm 10 having an abutting portion 11 capable of engaging as shown in figures 3a to 3d to the end of the female end region to thereby-advance a tag to the left.

The mode of operation of the apparatus is substantially as follows. The loaded applicator as depicted in figure 3a would have the slide moved to the left thereby advancing a tag 12 in a straight line to the left until the same is deflected downwardly preferably with the assistance of the stop 4 to its first of several receiving conditions against the first jaw 1. This condition is shown in figure 3b. Subsequently further movement of the slide 8 to the left as depicted in figure 3c forces the male region of the tag back into a better engagement with the first jaw while at the same time pivoting the first jaw backwardly against the action of its spring 3. This condition is shown in figure 3d. it can be seen how any further movement to the left of the slide 8 will tend to destabilise the female member. This is best seen in figure 3d where, with the pivoted arm still substantially in its original condition or only slightly lower relative to the slide, a bow in the female region commences which will have the effect of flicking that region down to a condition as shown in figure 3e if the pivoted arm is no longer maintained by constraints in its condition as shown in figure 3d. Ideally guides are provided which will substantially constrain the pivote^S^festo a condition substantially as depicted in figurev 3d unti*0 "'■* -IV - li - « 198297 shortly before the pivoted arm assumes the condition shown in fiqure 3d, thus meaning that the movements of the pivoted arm, and hence the tag, shown in figures 3c, d and e occur in an instant.

As shown in figure 3e it can be seen how the first jaw returns to its condition as it was in figure 3a or substantially back towards that position. At the same time it can be realised that with the pivoted arm no longer engaging in any way with the tag the slide can be returned back to the condition as shown in figure 3a. However to follow 10 thorough ;the drawings in sequence it can be seen that for ease of explanation the slide has been left in its figure 3e condition to show how if desired the second jaw 5 can be moved to the left under its acutation means to achieve a tagging of an animal's ear that would have been located between the female member and male member of the tagging condition received tag.

It is believed therefore that the present invention allows a substantial compaction at least in length from the magazine to the first jaw. Such a restriction in size will 20 thus make an applicator of the kind originally envisaged in our New Zealand Patent Specification No.191261 much more attractive. 198297

Claims (7)

WHAT WE CLAIM IS:

1. An ear tag applicator for ear tags of a kind having a flexible and/or hinged shank with an aperture at or towards ■ one end thereof and an upstanding male member retainable through said apertui at or towards the other end thereof, said applicator 'including a first jaw, a second jaw, said first and/or said second jaw being movable towards the other when actuated to do so, actuation means to cause the relative movement between said jaws, • means to feed a tag from a source thereof male member end first to at least one of several receiving conditions against said first jaw, and means which coact , with the tag received or being received by said first jaw to firstly elastically destabilise part of the female end region of the tag and secondly to cause the same to assume a tendency to flip to its tagging condition, said means allowing the assumption of the tagging condition with the male member pointed substantially to the female member and with said first jaw acting on the male region and the second jaw acting or being capable of acting on tiie female region of the tag.

2. An ear tag applicator as claimed in claim 1 wherein said source of tags from which said means to feed obtains tags is a magazine.

3. An applicator as claimed in claim 2 wherein said magazine holds a plurality of the tags in a stagger stack formation .

4. An applicator as claimed in any one i 13 198297 claims wherein said first jaw is resiliently mounted.

5. An applicator as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein said actuation means moves said second jaw only.

6. An applicator as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein said first jaw is pivoted so that portions thereof first contacted by a tag can move more than those portions thereof which when a tag is in its tagging condition align with said male member. 10 7. An applicator as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein a spring acts on a region of said first jaw remote from its pivot such that under the action of a tag making initial contact therewith some movement about its pivot occurs against the resilience of the spring and subsequently the jaw is pivoted back to its initial condition or substantially thereto when the tag received therein is in its tagging condition.

8. An applicator as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein the feeding means includes abutting means 20 acting on the female end of the tag at the very end thereof.

9. An applicator as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein said abutting means is an advance distal portion of a pivoted arm mounted from a reciprocal member, the arrangement and construction being such that in use when said reciprocable member is advanced said pivoted arm abuts a tag at its end and moves the same towards said first iaw and as it approaches said jaw tends to move d i its pivot to assist the flip movement of the f 14 198297 into its position on said second jaw and such that when such reciprocal means is moved "back from its advanced condition the downwardly pivoted arm rises upwards to assume a condition where it can engage again during a fresh advance movement with a further tag.

10. An applicator as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein the feeding means is substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to' the accompanying drawings. 10 11 • An applicator as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein means is provided to act as a stop to counteract the spring acting on said first jaw to thereby limit its movement, said stop having a function which assists in the arching of the female regions initially during its destablisation mode to thereby ensure a tendancy to assume its tagging position.

12. An applicator substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

13. The use of an applicator as claimed in any one of the 20 preceding claims in the tagging of animals in a method substantially as hereinbefore described. L..I&- DOP&, 3A- £rt£c&T

7 By -Sa/their authorised Agents. A. J. PARK & SON, PEA 15