US3730661A

US3730661A - Stick inserter

Info

Publication number: US3730661A
Application number: US00084099A
Authority: US
Inventors: T Tremblay
Original assignee: JOHN LEWIS Inc
Current assignee: JOHN LEWIS Inc
Priority date: 1970-10-26
Filing date: 1970-10-26
Publication date: 1973-05-01
Anticipated expiration: 1990-05-01
Also published as: CA944616A; AU470735B2; AU3682671A

Abstract

A machine inserts sticks into rapidly freezing confections by presenting a tape which holds the sticks in a horizontal plane to a gripping mechanism. After this gripping mechanism has gripped certain sticks, it - the gripping mechanism - is moved away from the tape and turned; and it is then plunged downwardly towards the molds which are full of confection mixture, which is freezing rapidly, so that the sticks penetrate into and are held by the confection mixture. The sticks are released and the gripping mechanism is returned to the tape to begin the cycle again. Fresh sticks are presented to the gripping mechanism because movement of the tape took place while the gripping mechanism was inserting the sticks in the freezing mixture.

Description

United States Patent [191 Tremblay [54] STICK INSERTER [75] Inventor: Theodose Tremblay, Montreal,

Quebec, Canada [73] Assignee: John Lewis 1nc., Montreal, Quebec,

Canada [22] Filed: Oct. 26, 1970 [21] Appl. No: 84,099

[51] Int. Cl ..A23g 1/20, A23g 1/22, A23g 3/12,

A23g 3/16, A23g 3/18, A23g 5/02, B29c 27/14 58 Field of Search ..99/86, 90 R, 136;

145 May1,1973

Primary Examiner-G. V. Larkin Att0rney-Stevens, Davis, Miller 8.: Mosher [5 7] ABSTRACT A machine inserts sticks into rapidly freezing confections by presenting a tape which holds the sticks in a horizontal plane to a gripping mechanism. After this gripping mechanism has gripped certain sticks, it the gripping mechanism is moved away from the tape and turned; and it is then plunged downwardly towards the molds which are full of confection mixture, which is freezing rapidly, so that the sticks penetrate into and are held by the confection mixture. The sticks are released and the gripping mechanism is returned to the tape to begin the cycle again. Fresh sticks are presented to the gripping mechanism because movement of the tape took place while the gripping mechanism was inserting the. sticks in the freezing mixture.

13 Claims, 9 Drawing Figures Paten: d May 1, 1973 I 3,730,661

4 Sheets-Sheet 1 [4 4 6, seq/4 FIG. 9.

Patented May 1, 1973 3,730,661

4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Patented May 1, 1973 3,730,661

4 Sheets-Sheet 5 CLUTCH 2 (sq I00) 11 FIG.5.

Patented May 1, 1973 3,730,661

4 Sheets-Sheet 4 STICK INSERTER This invention concerns that portion of a frozen stick confection machine called a stick inserter." Such machines are well known in the dairy and food industries supply industry under the trademarks Vitaline and Gram.

The stick inserter, as now engineered, is a problem to the user for the reasons given below after a brief description. The stick inserter comprises a slot with a reciprocating plunger or piston which rams a stick into the rapidly freezing confection on the downstroke and retracts upwardly to allow another stick to enter the slot. These sticks are presented to the slot in the form of what is virtually a presliced block with the major flat surfaces of the stick face to face; and spring pressure urges the block forward so that it projects into the slot by the thickness of one stick, when the plunger is retracted. It will be understood that there may be sixteen slots in parallel on a given machine producing double stick confections. The basic mechanical principle on which each slot and plunger works is somewhat analagous to that used in stapling machines.

Unfortunately, this system has some serious disadvantages when used in frozen confection machines with wooden sticks. Due to the force which may be required for some confections (as explained below) the spring and plunger forces are rather high; this demands very accurate sticks. One that is thick will not enter the slot properly, and one that is thin will allow the next to enter the slot partly; one that is slightly bowed will not enter properly and, of course, the slightest knot or flaw may cause the stick to break or splinter.

Machines for packing accurate sticks face to face into presliced blocks and then banding them together with paper are well known as it is necessary to ship these packs to distant confection making plants. Unfortunately the number of sticks per block or package is limited by mechanical column stability considerations; 50 sticks, i.e., about 4 inches long, is about the limit of convenience for the banding paper and these packages are placed in the machine manually.

The net result of all these factors is that the wastage of sticks is relatively high about 25 percent; sticks must be accurate near perfect because one poor stick jammed in one slot stops the operation of all plungers. Moreover, on two stick confections, the sticks are used so rapidly that placing the stick blocks in the 16 feeds of a standard machine require almost the full time attention of one operator. Both factors raise costs.

In order to overcome these shortcomings an inexpensive package has been developed which allows sticks to be held in a paper tape rather than formed into presliced packages of limited number; the paper of course can be unspooled from a roll holding 10,000 sticks or more and fed across the machine mechanically, thus removing the necessity for full time supervision. The tape and method of making it are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,605,373 issued on Sept. 20, 1970.

The adapting of the tape package to the standard type of stick inserter was found to be rather more difficult than might be supposed. In order to reduce the package cost for reasons of hygiene the paper is submultiple of 3 inches which is the standard mold lateral pitch. A first attempt was to remove the stick from the tape by means of a series of idler rollers which would press the preselected ones of the sticks against a common driven roll. The sticks fell down chutes to plunger type inserters of the same type as before, although dimensions were eased, of course, to accommodate thicker-than-normal or slightly bowed sticks. This approach, while seemingly attractive, in that it used known techniques and many pre-existing parts, did not give results that were acceptable in that the faults which developed cost more than the operator time saved.

Accordingly, a completely new method of stick insertion has been developed. The requirements for such a machine are rather stringent; the stick has to be directed firmly on insertion because frozen water confections unlike ice cream present a widely vary ing resistance to stick insertion; this resistance increases sharply with the small drop in temperature which occurs after start up when the plant has thoroughly cooled down to operating temperature. Some water confections (e.g., twin bar confections) have two sticks at an angle to the surface and if the stick is not reasonably firmly held as in a slide it tends to skate along the partly frozen surface. Moving the inserter to a less frozen row does not solve the problem properly because the sticks then tend to float resulting in initial wastage. Hence insertion by holding the sticks between rollers does not work with the exceedingly low failure rate required, and raising the roller pressure splinters some sticks (a hazard to children) or requires an accuracy of alignment and register of the roller width on the stick which is virtually impossible to achieve in practice.

Another requirement is that of versatility, the ability to change easily from making single stick wide confections to making single stick narrow confections (both having sticks along the central axis); and an inserter should also make double stick confections, in which the sticks are set at an angle to one another and the central axis.

It is alsopr'eferable to handle the tape with the planar surface horizontal, since if vertical the occasional stick might tend to slip out of the tape due to the intermittent nature of operation of the stick inserter, and this horizontal handling is also achieved by the machine described below.

The invention may best be understood by referring to the drawings which illustrate by way of example, one

embodiment.

In the drawings:

FIG. I is a perspective view showing the stick inserter of this invention mounted on a Vitaline" frozen stick confection machine;

FIG. 5 illustrates a circuit diagram showing mechanical actuation of switches to operate an electrical clutch;

FIGS. 6, 7, 8 and 9 show in partly diagrammatic form the sequence of operations of the stick inserter.

In the drawings, it will be seen that there are basically three mechanisms; the first is the tape transporting mechanism 2, the second is the stick-grip-and-release mechanism 4, and the third is mechanism 6 for translating the gripped sticks from the paper tape to the molds.

As will be described below the first tape transport mechanism is electrically driven and the second and third mechanisms are pneumatically driven by the air impulse which was used to operate the plungers of the prior art stick inserter. Moreover, the second and third mechanisms, as will be explained later below, are pneumatically linked together without any pressure sensing devices, microswitches or the like.

Turning to the details of the tape transporting mechanism, the tape 8 carrying sticks 10 unspools from roll 12 because the power driven endless chains 14 have projections (not shown) of the type well known on roller chains; and these projections engage the sticks 10 so as to unspool the tape 8 from roll 12. The power for driving the chain 14 is supplied from electric motor 18 which runs continuously, through the electrically operated clutch 20 and right angle worm reducing drive 22. The control of the operation of the clutch will be described further below.

The output shaft 24tfrom the worm reducer 22 is coupled through a flexible coupling 26 to another shaft, 28, which is supported by two

pillow blocks

30, 32 in a double cantilever mounting. Beyond these pillow blocks, two

sprockets

34, 36 are keyed to shaft 28; they are spaced apart to accept the width of the paper tape between them and, of course, drive the two chains 14 with the stick engaging projections mentioned above.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the details of these arrangements are not, in themselves, of great consequence and many other drives could be designed to carry out the same function. There are some minor advantages to the drive portrayed; for instance having the power drive axis parallel to the tape means that the stick inserting station occupies less length along the frozen confection machine. The chain, drive, 'motor, clutch, worm reducer and sprockets, flexible couplings, pillow blocks and the like are standard items and may be obtained from Boston Gear or similar organizations and even the projections are a simple modification of a catalog item.

The function of the minor ancillary items will probably be evident from the drawings but they will be mentioned for the sake of completeness. The chain drives 14 have idler sprockets 38, 40 on shaft 42 supporting them so that the two chains 14 are substantially horizontal and the tape runs intermittently (as will be explained) between them. In order to give the tape itself some additional support, drums in the nature of wide faced pulleys 46, 48 are keyed to shafts 26 and 42 between the pulleys.

The chain drive 14 thus pulls the tape 8 out of the spool by pulling on the sticks 12, but the effective weight of the tape and sticks is supported on the belt and drive 46, 48, 50. An elongated nylon brush (not shown for the sake of clarity) above the tape presses it and the sticks down on to the belt the reason for this being that this keeps the paper tape flat; otherwise the tape tends to buckle as some of the sticks are removed which can cause misalignment. A spool 58 gathers up the empty tape after the sticks have been extracted, for easy disposal.

A bent metal sheet (illustrated diagrammatically as a flat plate 54) extends along the width of the frozen confection machine, above and adjacent the layer of sticks so as to provide a groove; the paper edge closer to the stick grip mechanism slides in this groove which thus retains the paper tape when the sticks are being withdrawn and helps to prevent buckling of the tape.

A bar 56 running across the machine is provided as a back up bar so that the sticks and tape assembly do not recede from the stick-grip-and-release mechanism and thereby improperly stress the chain drives 14 by lateral loading.

This stick-grip-and-release mechanism 4 is best understood by reference to the detail in FIG. 4 and comprises a base plate 60 with two integral extending arms 62. This base plate is moved in a manner to be described below by the translation mechanism 6, and is thus in the nature of a backbone or mainstay of the stick gripping mechanism and not an immovable foundation. However, one portion of it, 64, is called the non-moving clamp jaw to distinguish it from the moving clamp jaws 66. The non-moving clamp jaw 64 effectively runs the width of the frozen confection machine but there are a plurality of moving jaws 66 each of which is as wide as the width of the stick.

These moving clamp jaws 66 are part of a sub-assembly 68 which pivots about shaft 70; this shaft is mounted in nylon bearing blocks 72, 74. These bearing blocks are split for easy replacement of the shaft 70 and the subassembly 68, when jaw changeover from say 8 stick insertion to 16 stick insertion is required.

The subassembly 68 comprises a plate 76 to which are welded two arms 78. These arms correspond with and are connected to the two arms 62 on the base plate through two linear air motors 80. This plate 76 is bolted to clamp support block 82, trapping register plate 84 between them. Clamp support block'82 also carries the shaft 70. The jaws themselves are not rigidly integral with the subassembly 68 but are free to move against the load of a stiff spring 85 and is retained by shouldered dowel bolt, 86. It may also rotate slightly for reasons which will be made clear below.

Pressure bar 88 slides to and fro, under the action of guide 90 and four springs 92, as the whole stick grip mechanism 2 moves forward to pick up sticks and then releases them. A hinged cover 94 clips in to enclose the underside and to prevent any oil leakage from the piston rod of air motor 80 falling onto the confection being frozen.

The air motor is essentially a double acting piston in a cylinder, the piston and the cylinder housing at the piston rod end being provided with O-ring seals to minimize air leakage. Such air motors are catalog items and may be obtained from a number of suppliers. The sequence of operation of the air motors 80 and the interactions with pressure bar 88 will be described later below.

The translating mechanism is also driven by air pres sure and comprises an L-shaped guide 96, and a pair of racks and

pinions

100, 106 and 104, 108. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that such an arrangement is by no means of the essence of the broad concept of the invention; and that if such a motion is desired it could be carried out by other types of mechanisms. Furthermore, other types of translational motion can be used depending upon the relationship between the planes of the stick strip when the sticks are being extracted and the vertical needed for insertion of the sticks into open molds with horizontal quasi-liquid surfaces.

Nevertheless, there are certain advantages in having the plane of the stick strip and hence the spool axis horizontal so that the motion to be described is the preferred motion. Moreover, the guide and rack and pinion approach requires only simple machining and standard items available from organizations selling power transmission products such as chains, worm reducers and the like, and as will be shown the motion of the two sides can be ganged easily together so as to maintain uniform insertion from one side of the machine to the other.

Thus, the mechanism comprises L-shaped guide 96 at each end in a face plate 98 which is welded to the inserter frame. The L-shaped guide has two straight portions joined by a radius all of which can be cut simply on a vertical milling machine. The stick-grip-andrelease mechanism 4 is supported by stub shafts 102 extending from the base plate through the L-shaped guide 96 in the frame face plate 98.

Racks

100, 104 are attached to the base plate 60, one at each side and each engages a cog or

pinion

106, 108. These two pinions are keyed on to one shaft 110 which is of relatively thick section to minimize any twist and which thus keeps the motion of the two sides in step; they are otherwise free to turn. As will be noted the

racks

100, 104 travel above the

pinions

106, 108 as the stub shafts 102 travel along the L-shaped guide constraints 96 and are then directed downwardly engaging that side of the pinionscloser to the

stick strip

8, 10. The effect of this rack and pinion action is to turn the base plate 60 (together with the finger gripping mechanism, air motors 80 and the like) bodily through 90 while it is being moved linearly and along and downwardly through the action of the L-shaped guide constraint 96. This superposition of lateral movement and turning motion is achieved with the air of simple parts, the guide constraint providing lateral movement and the rack and pinion providing turning; this may be easily understood by reference to FIGS. 6, 7, 8 and 9. These will be explained more fully below.

Power for this operation is supplied by a large linear air motor 1 l2 hinged on a rigid arm 114 which is bolted to the machine frame. This arrangement is simple, but has the minor disadvantage that occasional operator attendance is needed; otherwise oil in the pneumatic air may eventually pass out through the piston rod gland and occasionally drip on to the confection. A rotary motor with a crank output and semi-circle motion will overcome this a connecting rod is attached between the crank and stick-grip-and-release mechanism 4 but the simpler linear air motor is shown to avoid mere mechanical improvement detail.

Moreover, the great advantage of this arrangement is that the standard air impulse, previously used to operate the slides of. the prior art type injector (with the banded presliced blocks) may be used to drive both the stick-grip-and-release mechanism and also the translation mechanism without the need for electrical relays,

time delays, throttling devices or the like. A simple bifurcation of the air supply lines into 2 equal parts ensures that the air motors 80, because of their smaller volume, operate to grip the sticks before the air motor 112 drives the translation mechanism to insert the sticks into the molds; and on the powered return stroke the air impulse operates on the other side of the piston of air motors so as to release the sticks before pressure can build up enough in the other side of air motor 112 to start moving the translation mechanism back again.

Two more features require explanation before the full operation of the machine can be understood. Firstly, microswitch 116 is arranged to operate the electric clutch 20 each time the stick-grip-and-release mechanism 2 moves away from the tape. This causes the stick strip to advance across the machine until one set of contacts on microswitch 118 are tripped or opened by a stick 10 which has advanced to a position where it is opposite the last of the moving clamps 66. The other contacts of microswitch 118 that is the circuit that is closed by the advancing stick is used to operate a buzzer alarm. Normally it is only a second or so before the stick is plucked from the tape but if prolonged as by a broken stick keeping microswitch 118 open the continuous sound of the buzzer warns the operator, most effectively, that confections are being made without sticks. The circuit diagram of FIG. 5 shows the electromechanical arrangement which could by a suitable time delay, be made to suppress buzzer operation completely unless failure occurred.

Secondly, the two sticks-at-an-angle in each confection is achieved easily, when desired, by the addition of a row of deflectors 120 which can be attached or removed by studs and wing 'nuts not illustrated. These may be seen most easily in FIG. ll. The reason for the rotation of moving clamp 66 in FIG. 4, about shouldered bolt 86, will now be evident as the whole assembly rotates the sticks 8 sweep past deflectors 120, the finger tips 124 of clamps 66 can move to accommodate the rotation of the sticks as they are cantilevered by the deflectors.

It will be known to those skilled in the art that stick inserters are usually provided with wheels 126 and clamps 128 so that the inserter station position can be adjusted and secured under the transient conditions after start up when the machine has not reached its lowest temperature. The freezing mixture at the station must be of just the right consistency so as both to allow insertion of the stick and to afford support.

The operation of the full cycle can now be explained with reference to FIGS. 6, 7, 8 and 9. Towards the end ing of the return stroke of air motor 112 (after sticks have been placed in molds) the stick grip and release mechanism 2 is positioned as shown in FIG. 6 so that it is horizontal; the L-shaped guide 96 and the rack cause it to move towards the tape until the row of sticks 10 press against the pressure bar 88 (see FIG. 4); under the action of back up bar 56 the sticks 10 force the pressure bar 88 and guide back against the load of springs 92 as the stick grip and release mechanism 2 continues to move forward to the end of the horizontal portion of the L-shaped guide 96.

The actuating impulse of the air pressure applied from the machine (the same as for the prior art stick inserter) then operates air motors 80 first because of their low volume. Subassembly 68 is thus rotated with shaft 70 so that moving clamps 66 grip one stick each, as illustrated on FIG. 7.

As air pressure builds up in air motor 112, the stickgrip-and-release mechanism 4 withdraws sticks 10 from the paper tape 8, (operating microswitch 116, not shown on FIG. 8, immediately after it has done so) then turns about its mounting stub shafts 102 under the action of L-shaped guide 96 and the rack and

pinion

100, 104, 106, 103; deflectors 120 if in position adjust the sticks so that their angle of entry into the mold subsequently will be correct. After the turning motion of the stick-grip-and-release mechanism 4, the plane of the sticks is vertical (whether the deflectors are present or not) and the mechanism travels down the vertical arm of L-shaped guide constraint 96 and plunges the sticks into the molds full of rapidly freezing confection, as shown in full in FIG. 9.

The second pneumatic impulse also operates air motors 80 first, releasing the sticks as shown in chain dotted lines in FIG. 9. Pressure bar 88 (not shown in FIG. 9) returns to the position shown in FIG. 4 under the action of springs 92; the air takes longer to operate the larger motor 112 and to start it lifting its heavier load mechanism 4; this sequence is illustrated by the arrows B and C. By the time mechanism 4 has returned to the starting position microswitch 118 has opened so as to terminate operation of the clutch 16, which caused the tape to move. The time available is adequate as the machine is only two feet wide or so and the cycle time (only half of which may be available) for tape traverse is about 1 second.

It will be clear that the moving clamps 66 will always find fresh sticks ready for them whether every second stick is taken as seen in FIG. 1 or every fourth stick as seen in FIG. 2, even through every third clutch operation or every fifth clutch engagement will last much longer as the paper tape, then spanning the inserter, will be empty.

Thus, it will be seen that simple changes will adapt the inserter to different conditions and that a single machine will conform to many stick insertion and mold requirements.

I claim:

1. An apparatus for inserting sticks into confection molds comprising:

a means for intermittently transporting a paper tape, containing confection sticks which are regularly spaced apart in a plane across an array of advancing molds;

a means for gripping a predetermined series of sticks near an end of each stick while said intermittently transporting means is momentarily stationary; and

a means for moving bodily said gripping means to a position adjacent said confection molds, the movement being adapted to withdraw sticks from the tape'and insert the ungripped ends thereof into said confection molds.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim l in which the means for bodily moving the gripping means further comprises guide means for guiding the gripping means to follow a path substantially parallel to the plane of the paper tape and then downwardly and means for turning the gripping means so that the last portion of the downward motion is carried out with the sticks in a substantially vertical plane.

3. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2 in which the means for turning the gripping means comprises a rack at each side of the gripping means and a pinion cooperating with each rack and in which the two pinions are keyed to a common shaft.

4. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2 and further comprising deflector means for changing the angle of the sticks within the plane so that two sticks may be inserted into one mold with the plane of the sticks vertical but with the individual sticks in the plane at an angle to the vertical and to one another, and wherein said deflector means is secured so as to deflect the sticks while the gripping means is undergoing substantial turning motion.

5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which the means for gripping a predetermined series of sticks comprise an air motor having a piston a series of moving jaws and means connecting the air motor piston to the moving jaws.

6. An apparatus as claimed in claim 5 in which the means for bodily moving said gripping means comprises an air motor, the bodily moving means air motor being much larger than said gripping means air motor so that when connected to the same air supply the gripping means air motor operates before the bodily moving means air motor.

7. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 and further comprising deflector means for changing the angle of the sticks within the plane so that two sticks may be inserted into one mold with the plane of the sticks vertical but with the individual sticks in the plane at an angle to the vertical and to one another.

8. An apparatus as claimed in claim 5 in which the series of moving jaws are secured to a common shaft and further comprising quick release bearing means locating said shaft, so that the series of moving jaws may be replaced by a second series.

9. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which the means for intermittently transporting confection sticks comprises an electric motor, an electrically operated clutch and means for sensing the presence or absence of a stick at a given position the sensing means being connected to engage the clutch to move the papertape where a stick is absent from a predetermined location.

10. An apparatus as claimed in claim 9 wherein the means for sensing the presence of a stick at a given position is connected to an alarm means so as to sound a continuous alarm if the means for intermittently transporting confection sticks fails to operate.

11. A method of inserting sticks into confection molds comprising the steps of:

transporting sticks intermittently to a series of stations in a plane across an array of advancing molds,

gripping said sticks near one end at the'stations,

moving the gripped end of said sticks away from said stations,

moving the gripped sticks so that the free end enters said confection molds and releasing said sticks.

12. A method as claimed in claim 11 in which the step of moving the gripped sticks so that the free end enters confection molds comprises the step of simultaneously turning and downwardly moving said sticks.

13. A method as claimed in claim 12 and further comprising the step of altering the angle of said gripping sticks relative to one another while simultaneous with the step of turning said gripped sticks.

Claims

1. An apparatus for inserting sticks into confection molds comprising: a means for intermittently transporting a paper tape, containing confection sticks which are regularly spaced apart , in a plane across an array of advancing molds; a means for gripping a predetermined series of sticks near an end of each stick while said intermittently transporting means is momentarily stationary; and a means for moving bodily said gripping means to a position adjacent said confection molds, the movement being adapted to withdraw sticks from the tape and insert the ungripped ends thereof into said confection molds.

2. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which the means for bodily moving the gripping means further comprises guide means for guiding the gripping means to follow a path substantially parallel to the plane of the paper tape and then downwardly and means for turning the gripping means so that the last portion of the downward motion is carried out with the sticks in a substantially vertical plane.

4. An apparatus as claimed in claim 2 and further comprising deflector means for changing the angle of the sticks within the plane so that two sticks may be inserted into one mold with the plane of the sticks vertical but with the individual sticks in the plane at an angle to the vertical , and to one another, and wherein said deflector means is secured so as to deflect the sticks while the gripping means is undergoing substantial turning motion.

5. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which the means for gripping a predetermined series of sticks comprise an air motor having a piston , a series of moving jaws and means connecting the air motor piston to the moving jaws.

9. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which the means for intermittently transporting confection sticks comprises an electric motor, an electrically operated clutch and means for sensing the presence or absence of a stick at a given position the sensing means being connected to engage the clutch to move the paper tape where a stick is absent from a predetermined location.

11. A method of inserting sticks into confection molds comprising the steps of: transporting sticks intermittently to a series of stations in a plane across an array of advancing molds, gripping said sticks near one end at the stations, moving the gripped end of said sticks away from Said stations, moving the gripped sticks so that the free end enters said confection molds and releasing said sticks.