US2981041A - Apparatus for dating closure members in coded form - Google Patents

Description

April 25, 1961 J. B. MELVILLE 2,981,041

APPARATUS FOR DATING CLOSURE MEMBERS IN CODED FORM Filed NOV. 19, 1957 fie. J.

r INVENTOR. 2 f/ 25 J0///VB.MLV/LLE 26 W I, 24 BY lil ' ,QTTOQNEYS APPARATUS FOR DATING CLOSURE MEMBERS IN CODED FORM The present invention relates to apparatus for securing closure members to containers and more specifically to means incorporated in such apparatus whereby information is placed on said closure member.

In the process of bottling milk, for example, it is desirable that the closure member contain information as to the time of bottling so that persons subsequently handling the bottled milk may have an indication as to its freshness and for the purpose of establishing responsibility. In the past, this has been accomplished by printing the name of the day on the closure member; and this thus necessitated the printing and stocking of many different closure members which would have to be used on correspondingly different days. Also, this past practice, suffered from the disadvantage that one could not be sure from just reading of the particular week in which the milk was bottled.

In accordance with the present invention more detailed information is placed on the closure member automatically when and as the closure member is secured to the bottle without the necessity of maintaining, in stock, different preprinted closure members.

An object of the invention is to provide improved means and techniques for placing information on closure members of containers.

A specific object of the present invention is to provide an improved pressure foot construction in bottling machines whereby information is automatically placed on the closure member while it is being secured to a bottle.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved pressure foot construction in which projections extending therefrom may be adjusted relative to each other for imparting the desired information.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement whereby the time of bottling is placed on the closure member in coded form.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a simple arrangement, capable of easy adjustment, for dating closure members in coded form.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement for dating closure members without the use of elements other than those new used in bottling systems.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement in which the coded information appears as no-n-obliterable indentations in the closure member.

The features of the present invention which are believed to be novel are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. This invention itself, both as to its organization and manner of operation, together with further objects and advantages thereof, may be best understood by reference to the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 illustrates a bottling system which incorporates features of the present invention.

Figure 2 shows in enlarged form, and partly in section, some of the details of the pressure foot embodying nit ed States Patent 2 features of the present invention in cooperative relation ship to a bottle and its closure member.

Figure 3 is a view in elevation of the cap or closure member engaging side of the pressure foot shown in Fig. 2, as indicated also by the line 33 in Fig. 4.

Figures 4 and 5 are sectional views taken on corresponding lines 4-4 and 5-5 in Fig. 3.

Figures 6 and 7 are top plan views of different caps or closure members that have been dated differently after using the apparatus shown in Figure 1.

While the invention is described specifically in connection with the bottling of milk, it is understood that it is applicable also to the packaging of other products.

The closure member or bottle cap 19 is illustrated as a conventional cap in which an outer circular layer of deformable aluminum foil is bonded to a like inner cireular layer of protective paper.

The apparatus, as presently described, serves to produce indentations in such metal cap as indicated in Figs. 6 and 7 automatically when and as the cap is being secured to a bottle 11. These indentations provide coded information. The indentation 12 is common to all bottle caps and comprises a reference indentation with respect to which the other adjustably positioned indentation 13A in Fig. 6 or indentation 13B in Fig. 7 is read. Both indentations 12 and 13A or 12 and 1313, as the case may be are made in the bottle capat the same time. As a matter of fact, that indentation which corresponds to either indentation 13A or 13B may be in any one of 31 different positions with respect to the reference indentation 12 so as to permit a corresponding determination of the corresponding day in a month having thirty-one days.

Such pair of indentations in any one particular cap is made by projections 17 and 18 on a modified pressure foot 19, which embodies important features of the present invention.

The pressure foot 19 comprises generally a modified cylindrical portion 21 having means in the form of a tapped hole 20 for releasably securing the same in the apparatus shown in Fig. 1. An indexable disc 22 is rotatably and resiliently mounted in the cylindrical portion 21 by means of an O-ring 24 which is disposed in an annular recess 25 and between two flanges on the shaft 26, the shaft 26 being secured to the disc 22. The cylindrical portion 21 has an integrally formed annular flange portion 28 in which the projection or pin 18 is secured. This pin 18 produces the aforementioned reference indentation 12. The other projection or pin 17 is secured to the disc 22 and produces the other aforementioned indentation exemplified by the indentation 13A or 13B.

It will be observed in Fig. 4 that the outer surface of disc 22 is in a common plane with the annular outer surface 23 of the flanged portion 28 and that such surface 23 is contiguous with the annular curved or dished portion 33 so that a cap, as shown in Fig.2, may be firmly held by such surfaces against and partially around the mouth of the bottle 11 when and as such indentations 12 and 13 are being made in the cap 10.

The disc 22, as indicated previously, and as shown in Fig. 3, has at least 31 notched portions and, to be exact, 32 notched portions on its periphery which is engaged by the stationary pin 18 for maintaining the disc in an indexed position. The disc 22 also has a pair of diametrically disposed apertured portions 40 and 41 which are used to move the disc 22 to a different selected indexed position. For this purpose, a tool 42 as shown in Fig. 5, is inserted in such apertured portions and torque is manually applied to turn the disc 22 with respect to the cylindrical portion 21. When this is done, the resilient support provided by the O-ring 24 allows the notched portions of the disc to ride over the stationary indexing pin N creating some noise that allows the person making the ad ustment to ascertain the amount of angular movement, 1.e., the number of days the disc 22 has been advanced. It will be seen that this adjustment or indexing of the disc 22 may be accomplished without removing the pressure foot 19 from the machine shown in Fig. 1.

Apart from the details of the pressure foot 19, described above, and its functioning to furnish coded information, the machine in Fig. 1 is considered to be conventional. In other words, the pressure foot 19 may be substituted for the conventional pressure foot in such machine and when such substitution is effected, the new functions and results indicated above are produced. For these reasons, an elaborate description of conventional features of the machine shown in Fig. 1 is considered unnecessary.

Briefiy, the machine shown in Fig. 1 includes a cylindrical storage magazine 50, mounted on a baseor supporting structure 51, in which caps 10, in their flat form are stored, and from which they are individually dispensed so as to overlie the mouth ofa bottle 11 in the bottling operation. A weight 52 is placed on the stack of caps to assure proper dispensing. Means are provrded for lifting individual bottles 11 in succession, up against a cap 10 and the pressure foot 19; and such means includes the power actuated element 54 which is slidably mounted for movement, as indicated by the arrows 55, on the stationary tubular member 56, such movement being guided by a key 57 on tubular element 56 which cooperates with a grooved portion in the sleeve 58 that is attached to element 54.

Such slidably mounted sleeve 58 has a bell crank 60 p voted thereon at 61. One end of hell crank 60 has plvoted thereon a bearing block 63 which is slidably mounted between two spaced cooperating guides 65 and 66 on cap magazine 50, the other end of crank 60 being pivoted to one end of a link 68 at 69, for producing slidyrzg movement of the cap feeder or dispensing assembly Such assembly includes an abutment 73 upon which the stack of caps 10 are supported and a generally U- shaped pusher element 74, above the abutment 73 for engaging and moving only the lowermost one of the caps 10 to a position above the mouth of a bottle 11 (which is being moved at the same time) when the element 55 is reciprocated. In such movement of pusher element 74, 1t is guided by cooperating surfaces on support 51.

After a cap 10 thus overlies the mouth of the bottle, the bottle continues to be raised and while thus being ralsed, the peripheral edge of the cap is crimped around the mouth of the bottle by a series of circumferentially arranged fingers 80 that are urged inwardly by the spring 81 and resiliently supported by spring 82. In the last stages of the crimping operation, the cap 10 is being pressed against the pressure foot 19 and the projections 17 and 18 carried thereon, as shown in Fig. 2 to produce the indentations 12 and 13A in cap 10. The pressure foot 19 is also resiliently supported and is allowed to slide in the circular guide aperture in plate 85 on base 51.

The pressure foot is constantly urged downwardly by a prestressed coil compression spring 86 housed with tubular element 56. One end of spring 86 bears against the circular guide plate 87 to which the pressure foot is attached by bolt 88. The other end of spring 86 bears against an adjustable circular abutment 90 which may be adjustably positioned using conventional means 92 for adjusting the forces exerted by spring 86. When a bottle is not in position for crimping a cap thereto, movement of the presser foot 19 is limited due to contact between plates 85 and 87.

It will be thus observed that coded information in the form illustrated in Figs. 6 and 7 is impressed in the cap 10 While it is being crimped around the mouth of a bottle. The angular separation of these two indentations, using the center of the cap as the apex of the angle provides thedes'ir'e'd informatioii as to the day on which bottling occurred. This angular separation may vary from 0 to a value approaching 360 degrees in steps of 360/32 or approximately 11 degrees. The indentation represented by either indentation 13A or 13B is advanced one step each day for each day in the month so that such angular separation between indentations 12 and 13A (or 13B) is an indication of the particular day in the month that bottling occurred.

It will be seen that this information is not dependent upon the orientation of the pressure foot assembly 19 in the machine in Fig. 1, since both pins 17 and 18 are carried on the assembly. Further, as mentioned above, using a tool illustrated by'the'tool 42 in Fig. 5, the angular separation may be adjusted daily without removing the pressure foot from the machine.

While the particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made without departing from this invention in its broader aspects and, therefore, the aim in the appended claims is to cover all such changes and modifications as fall within the true spirit and scope of this invention.

I claim:

1. A pressure foot for use in producing coded indentations in a deformable closure member while the same is being secured to a container comprising in combination a member, means on said member for releasably securing the same in a mechanism for securing said closure member to said container, a disc, said disc having a shaft extending therefrom, a resilient O-ring between said shaft and said member in which said disc is rotatably and resiliently mounted, a projection extending outwardly from said disc for producing an indentation in said closure member, said disc having a series of pcripheral notched portions, and a second projection on said member, for producing an indentation in said closure member, and being engageable with a selected one of said notched portions to maintain said disc in a selected indexed position.

2. In an arrangement wherein a deformable closure member is secured to a container, a pressure foot having a closure member engaging surface for deforming said member with coded projections extending therefrom for producing corresponding coded indentations in said closure member, means for producing relative movement between said pressure foot, on the one hand and said container with a closure member thereon, on the other hand to produce said coded indentations, said pressure foot comprising a disc, means rotatably supporting said disc on said pressure foot, said disc having a series of peripherally disposed indexing notches, one of said projections being engagea-ble with a selected one of said notches to index said disc, a second one of said projections being on said disc, said disc supporting means incorporating resilient means acting between a relatively stationary portion of the pressure foot and said disc and pressing said one selected notch into engagement with said one projection, said one projection being stationary, said resilient means allowing rotation of the disc past said one stationary projection when said disc is manually rotated.

3. An arrangement as set forth in claim 2 in which said disc has a pair of apertured means accessible from the closure member engaging side of said pressure foot for indexing said disc with respect to said one projection.

4. In an arrangement wherein a deformable closure member is secured to a container, a pressure foot having a closure member engaging surface for deforming said member with coded projections extending therefrom for producing corresponding coded indentations in said closure member, means for producing relative movement between said pressure foot, on the one hand and said container with a closure member thereon, on the other ber engaging side of said pressure foot for indexing said hand to produce said coded indentations, said pressure disc with respect to said one projection.

foot comprising a disc, means rotatably supporting said disc on said pressure foot, said disc having a series of peferences C fl 1n the fil f lS pa en ripherally disposed indexing notches, one of said projec- 5 UNITED STATES PATENTS tions being engageable with a selected one of sa1d notches to index said disc, a second one of said projections being 745,244 Schulz 1903 on Said i 773,455 Bartholomew Oct. 25, 1904 5. An arrangement as set forth in claim 4 in which said 2,129,359 Pommer P 1938 disc has means thereon accessible from the closure mem- 10 3 1 Lidke 1959

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