US2968234A

US2968234A - Apparatus for looping flexible binding material around packages and the like

Info

Publication number: US2968234A
Application number: US668410A
Authority: US
Inventors: Mosey Frederick William; Langford Oswald Victor; Wild Jack
Original assignee: Seal Less Strapping Ltd
Current assignee: Seal Less Strapping Ltd
Priority date: 1956-07-04
Filing date: 1957-06-27
Publication date: 1961-01-17
Anticipated expiration: 1978-01-17

Description

Jan. 17, 1961 APPARATUS FOR L'ooPi F W MOSEY EI'AL NG FLEXIBLE BINDING MATERIAL AROUND PACKAGES AND THE LIKE Filed June 2'7, 1957 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Jan. 17, 1961 4 F. w. MOSEY ETAL 2,958,234

APPARATUS FOR LOOPING FLEXIBLE BINDING MATERIAL AROUND PACKAGES AND THE LIKE Filed June 2'7, 1957 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 United States Paten APPARATUS FOR LOOPING FLEXIBLE BINDING li llfiERlAL AROUND PACKAGES AND THE Frederick William Mosey, Oswald Victor Langford, and Jack Wild, London, England, assignors to Seal-Less Strapping Limited, London, England, a corporation of Great Britain Filed June 27, 1957, Ser. No. 668,410

Claims priority, application Great Britain July 4, 1956 8 Claims. (Cl. 10026) This invention is concerned with mechanism for looping packages or the like with flexible binding material, and is of the type essentially comprising a reversible feed, a holding gripper and a guide or guideway to form the material into the required loop around the package or the like. The material is projected by the feed from a supply past the gripper around the interior of the guide and back into the gripper which closes and firmly anchors the end part of the material. The feed is then reversed to contract the looped part of the material from the guide onto the package or the like. Such looping is a usual preliminary to interconnecting the coextending parts of the material with or without additional tensioning thereof and severing of the contracted loop from the supply, means for which supplementary operations may be combined with said looping mechanism.

In mechanism of this type it is desirable for the looped part of the material to remain throughout close to the inner face of the guide until the gripper is closed, in order to avoid waste of material due to the excessive projection of the end thereof through the gripper which is liable to take place if said looped part is allowed to sag prematurely from the guide before such closing. It is the object of the present invention therefore to ensure retention of said looped part in this close proximity with the guide in a simple and effective manner so as to enable the extent of the projection of the material through the gripper to be accurately determined by and in accordance with the operation of the feed without interfering with the free passage of the material around the guide or making its contraction therefrom more diflicult.

In accordance with the invention, the guide or guideway is therefore provided or formed with an exterior plate and an interior plate, shelf or equivalent support spaced sufficiently inwardly of the exterior plate to permit the binding material to be freely directed between them by the forward feeding. This shelf is open towards one side to allow the material to be readily drawn laterally therefrom on tensioning it by the reversal of the feed for contracting the loop onto the package. On the other side the shelf may be supported along and within one edge of the guide so as to be closed and the material thereby contained on that side.

The shelf may be offset with respect to the looping plane, i.e. the plane about which the engagement of the material by the feed and the holding gripper centers, in order to assist such lateral withdrawal of the material from the shelf by the centering of the loop into that plane as a first consequence of said tensioning. For this purpose it will generally be sufiicient for the open or free edge of the shelf over which the material is thus withdrawn to lie approximately in said looping plane so that the shelf extends away therefrom.

If the Width of the guide includes the looping plane in the usual manner, it follows that a shelf which is thus oflset will project only part way across said guide from 2,968,234 Patented Jan. 17, 1961 its supporting edge, in which case the guide may be inwardly flanged along its opposite edge, leaving a gap with sufficient clearance between this flange and said free edge of the shelf for the subsequent contraction of the loop through said gap.

At the entrance to the guide a suitable deflector means may be provided for directing the advancing end of the binding material to that part of the width of the guide to which the shelf is offset, so that said end continues along said shelf instead of in the looping plane, with provision of means at the exit from the guide for directing said end back into said plane for engagement by the holding gripper. Also, if necessary for retaining the material on the shelf, one or more catches may be provided along the length of the guide adapted to contain the material on the open side of the shelf. Both said deflector and said catches must naturally be such as to permit the required lateral withdrawal of the material from the shelf and may for this purpose be made resilient so that the material can readily thrust them aside.

They can for instance take the form of leaf springs anchored at one end to the guide and extending resiliently towards the shelf slantwise and preferably trailing in the direction towards which the material is projected.

The invention will now be further described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, showing a mechanism in accordance therewith for looping flexible strip in the banding of packages or the like, in conjunction with just those parts of the associated banding machine (as set forth in copending application Serial No. 680,164, filed August 26, 1957, now Patent N0.-2,925,698, having a convention filing date of August 31, 1956 based upon application No. 26,627/56 filed in Great Britain on that date) as are necessary for a proper understanding of the present invention. In the drawings:

Fig. 1 shows, in side elevation, the looping guide of the mechanism in position above the table or platform of the machine with indications of the reversible feed of the latter and the holding gripper (which may form part of its jointing unit) which are essentially concerned in the looping operation;

Fig. 2 is a plan view of said table or platform and the adjacent entrance to and exit from the guide, looking in the direction of arrow 2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a detail fragmentary perspective view of the entrance to the guide, the arrow 3, shown also in Fig. 1, indicating the view point;

Fig. 4 is a section of the guide along the line 4-4 of Fig. 1;

Figs. 5A and 5B are identical sections of the guide along the line 5-5 of Fig. 1, showing the position of the flexible strip S during projection and when withdrawn from the shelf ready for contraction of the loop, respectively; and

fig. 6 is a detail view in the direction of arrow 6 of Fig. l to show one of the strip retaining catches.

In this constructional form the guide or guideway, denoted generally by 10, has an inwardly facing channel approximately twice the width of the flexible strip, with the shelf or interior guide plate 11 extending half-way across this channel and up to the looping plane, which is to be understood as here covering the width of the strip when in position in the other open half of the channel ready to be contracted onto the package (i.e. as shown in Fig. 5B). This channel is defined by two side parts, a connecting side portion 12 and side flange portion 13, extending along the edges of the inner face of the main guide member or exterior guide plate 14. Shelf or interior plate 11 is mounted on portion 12 and extends laterally therefrom leaving clearance for the free passage of the flexible strip beneath it.

The guide is erected and secured above the table 15 of the associated machine between pairs of

flanged panels

16 and 17 at the respective ends of the guide, in such a way that the open half of the guide channel lies in the looping plane as aforesaid, which plane also contains the reversible feed roller 18 and the holding gripper 19 of the machine.

The feeding of the flexible strip from a supply is effected by forward rotation of the roller 18 (with which said strip is held in frictional engagement by the manually liftable pressure roller frame 18a) whereby the free end part of the strip, which passes from the feed through a channel a of the table and is then threaded through an eye 19a of the gripper, is directed (whilst said gripper remains lowered and open) along another channel 15b of the table, beyond the gripper, into and around the guide, back into the channel 15a over the part of the strip already within it and so into the gripper, which is thereupon closed onto said end part to anchor it.

This closing of the gripper which is effeced by upward movement thereof takes place after the feed has been stopped and said end part has been permitted to extend sufliciently beyond the gripper for a connection to be made between it and the underlying strip by means of the jointing and severing unit indicated at 20, of which said gripper forms part but which it is unnecessary to describe here in detail, since the present invention is esseniially concerned only with the looping of the strip.

After the gripper has closed, roller 18 is rotated rearwardly to draw strip back through the eye 19a and channel 15a into the supply and consequenty to contract the anchored loop from the guide onto the package and even if desired to put a certain initial tension on it.

Other constructional features and details will be referred to in the course of the following further description of a looping operation starting with a free end of strip left projecting from the eye 19a. Within this eye and also in the channel 15a leading up to it, the strip is closely contained laterally in order to keep it accurately placed in the looping plane. Beyond the jointing unit however it enters the double width channel 15b, of which the guide channel forms a continuation and consequently there becomes progressively freer for lateral deflection from that plane the further it gets from the jointing unit, although always within the comparatively narrow limits which can never be exceeded in manipulating strip edgewise in this sense.

At the entrance to the guide (as shown in Fig. 3 with the near panel 16 removed) the strip end is directed under the shelf 11 by the leaf spring deflector 21 mounted on the inner face of side flange portion 13, which deflector will be seen is adapted to trail in the direction of movement of the strip. Similarly mounted on the inner face of side portion 12 opposite this deflector is an auxiliary guide piece 22 to ensure that the strip is thus directed down beneath the leading or free edge 11:: of the shef. The strip end then continues between the shelf right round to the exist from the guide, past the intermediate retaining catch 23 and another such catch 24 adjacent said exit, both of which are similar to deflector 21. On leaving the guide, the strip end enters channel 15a and is directed back into the looping plane by the flared wall 150 of the mouth of said channel; and, in order to ensure that at this stage the strip end also becomes directed into position for engagement by gripper 19, instead of through the eye 19a, the channel is formed with a horizontal dividing wall 15d above which said end passes at the required higher level for this purpose.

it is thus clear that the overlapping parts of the strip are both positioned and held by channel 15a in the looping plane in spite of the deflection of the looped part of the strip out of said plane during projection thereof. After closing of the gripper 19, the reversal of the feed first serves to center this looped part also into said plane and thereby cause its withdrawal from the shelf laterally against the resistance of deflector 21 and the catches 4 23 and 24 which are thrust aside by the consequent ten- SlOIl.

The shelf 11 is preferably continuous throughout the length of the guide, although, as it is the inner face of the latter by which the end of the strip is actually constrained, more or less considerable gaps in the shelf are possible without thereby adversely afleeting its ability to prevent inward sagging of the loop.

We claim:

1. In an apparatus for looping packages with a flexible material, a looping guideway open toward one side and defining a shelf sufficiently wide to receive and independently support said flexible material while permitting free movement of said material toward said open side, means adjacent said open side at one end of said looping guideway for urging said material into said shelf and away from the open side of said guideway, a reversible feed means for feeding material into said guideway and adapted to apply tension to said material after it has been fed onto said guideway, and means for positioning said material in a plane removed from said shelf and adjacent said open side before it enters and after it leaves said guideway, said deflector means adapted to permit the lateral movement of said material out of said shelf toward the open side of said guideway and into the plane of said positioning means when said material is placed under tension whereby said material is released from said guideway.

2. In an apparatus for looping packages with a flexible material, a looping guideway one portion of which is open toward the interior of the loop and a second portion of which lies laterally adjacent to said one portion and is open toward said first portion to define a shelf of a width at least equal to the width of said flexible material, a reversible feed means for feeding material into said guideway and adapted to apply a tension to said material after it has been fed onto said guideway, means aligned with said one portion for positioning said material in the plane of said first portion before it enters and after it leaves said guideway, and deflector means for urging said material out of said plane into said second portion of said guideway and adapted to permit the lateral movement of said material into said first portion when said material is placed under tension, whereby said material is released from said guideway.

3. An apparatus for looping packages with a flexible material comprising a looping guideway, a reversible feed means for feeding material into said guideway and adapted to apply a tension to said material after it has been fed onto said guideway, positioning means for maintaining the material in the looping plane before it enters and after it leaves said guideway, gripping means for gripping a portion of the material adjacent the end thereof after the material has been fed onto said guideway and prior to and during the application of tension to the material by said feed means, said guideway comprising a first portion disposed in the looping plane and open toward the interior of the loop, a second portion exterior of the looping plane and connected to and open toward said first portion, and resilient means for urging the material out of the looping plane into said guideway second portion and adapted to permit the lateral movement of the material into said first portion when said material is placed under tension, whereby the material is released from said guideway.

4. An apparatus for looping packages with elongate flexible material comprising a looping guideway having an inwardly disposed shelf portion open laterally toward one side and sufliciently wide to receive and independently support said flexible material while permitting free lateral movement of said material toward said open side, reversible feed means operable in one direction for longitudinally feeding the material toward one end of said shelf portion from a position disposed to said one side thereof and operable in the opposite direction for applying a tension to said material, means adjacent the opposite end of said shelf portion for deflecting the material therefrom to said one side, and gripping means on said one side for gripping a portion of the material after the latter has been deflected to said one side of said shelf portion, whereby said feed means may apply tension thereto.

5. An apparatus for looping packages with elongate flexible material comprising a guideway having an inwardly disposed looping shelf portion defining a guide plane, said shelf portion being laterally open toward one side of said guide p'ane and being sufliciently wide to receive and independently support said flexible material while permitting free lateral movement of said material toward said open side, reversible feed means operable in one direction for longitudinally feeding the material toward one end of said shelf portion from a position disposed to said one side of said plane and operable in the opposite direction for applying tension to said material, means adjacent the opposite end of said shelf portion for deflecting the material from said shelf portion to said one side of said plane, and gripping means on said one side for gripping a portion of the material after the latter has been deflected from said shelf portion, whereby tension may be applied thereto.

6. An apparatus for looping packages with elongate flexible material comprising a guideway having an inwardly disposed looping shelf portion open laterally toward one side, reversible feed means operable in one direction for longitudinally feeding the material toward a point to said one side of and out of the plane of said shelf portion and operable in the opposite direction for applying a tension to said material, means adjacent said one side of said shelf portion for deflecting the material into said shelf portion and adapted to permit the lateral movement of the material toward said one side and out of said shelf portion when the material is placed under tension, means adjacent the opposite end of said shelf portion for deflecting the material therefrom to said one side, and gripping means on said one side for gripping a portion of the material after the latter has been deflected to said one side of said shelf portion, whereby tension may be applied thereto.

7. An apparatus for looping packages with elongate flexible material comprising a guideway having a looping shelf portion open toward one side, a first guide means for guiding said material along a path on said one side of said shelf portion and substantially parallel to the plane of said shelf portion, reversible feed means for longitudinally feeding said material into said first guide means and adapted to apply tension to said material after it has been looped, second guide means intermediate said first guide means and one end of said shelf portion for resiliently deflecting said material away from said path into said shelf portion, said second guide means being adapted to permit the lateral movement of the material toward said one side and out of said shelf portion when the material is placed under tension, third guide means for deflecting the material to said one side from said shelf portion and into superposed relationship With respect to the material in said first guide means, and gripping means for gripping a portion of the material after the material has been deflected by said third guide means and prior to and during the application of tension to the material by said feed means, said elongate flexible material being removed from said shelf portion by the application of tension and disposed in a plane to said one side thereof.

8. An apparatus for looping packages with elongate flexible material comprising a guideway having a looping shelf portion open laterally toward one side, reversible feed means disposed on said one side of said shelf portion for feeding said material into said shelf portion and adapted to apply a tension to said material after it has been looped, deflecting means for resiliently urging the material from said one side into said shelf portion, positioning means for maintaining the material on one side of said guideway before it enters said shelf portion and for deflecting said material to said one side as it leaves said guideway, and gripping means disposed on said one side of said guideway for gripping a portion of the material adjacent the end thereof after the end of said material has been fed onto said shelf portion and deflected to said one side and prior to and during the application of tension to the material by said feed means, said deflecting means being adapted to permit the lateral movement of the material toward said one side and out of said shelf portion when said material is placed under tension, whereby the material is released from said guideway.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,409,652 Workman Oct. 22, 1946 2,730,036 Chessman J an. 10, 1956 FOREIGN PATENTS 470,138 Germany Jan. 9, 1929