US991277A - Tobacco-feeding device. - Google Patents

Description

LEON A. CLEMENT, or MEXICO, ivrnxrco.

TOBACCO-FEEDING DEVICE.

Application Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 2, 1911.

filed June 2, 1910. Serial No. 564,614.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, Leon A. CLEMENT, a citizen of the French Republic, and resident of the city of Mexico, Mexico, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Tobacco-Feeding Devices, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to tobacco-feeding devices, particularly for cigar-making machines. In such machines the-tobacco placed in a hopper or container is acted upon by carding rollers, and owing to the tendency of the tobacco to cling to these rollers, instead of dropping therefrom at the proper moment, a void is formed in the mass of tobacco, causing it to be fed in an irregular manner. To overcome this defect, I have provided a tapping or tamping mechanism, which forces the tobacco to fill the void and even prevents the formation of any large void. 1

In the accompanying drawings, which illustrate one of the many forms in which my invention may be embodied, Figure 1 is a vertical section of the part of a cigarmaking machine to which my invention is applied; Fig. 2 is an end view showing the intermittent drive of the tamping mechanism, Fig. 3 is an end view of the entire driving arrangement, and Fig. 4c a front View.

M is the hopper or container in which a mass of tobacco A is placed, to be treated in the usual manner by the carding rollers N, O and to be fed or distributed to the other parts of the cigar-making machine,by means of a conveyer at P (not shown). The rollers N, O are located one above the other at one side of the container M. I prefer to have the roller 0 revolve at a higher rate of speed than the roller N, and to give the latter an intermittent motion. These parts may be of any usual or approved construction. It is a belt which carries the tobacco toward the roller 0. In the ordinary operation of such a feeding device, some tobacco fibers adhere to the rollers N, 0 instead of dropping therefrom, and as a result a void is formed such as indicated at B. In consequence thereof, the mass homogeneousness and is fed irregularly by the conveyer. According to my invention,

add a device for exerting pressure, or a tamping action, toward the point (the pocket between the rollers) at which the void B is liable to form. Such pressure is of tobacco loses its preferably exerted intermittently, in which case the device becomes a tapper, as in the form illustrated by the drawings. Here the tapper comprises a bar C extending across practically the entire width of the container M, and movable toward and from the pocket between the rollers N, O. For this purpose, the bar C is fixed to levers D D carried by a rock shaft E and provided with a counterweight L, if desired, butthe weight of the bar should normally cause it to drop upon the tobacco A as shown in Fig. 1. The shaft 13 carries a pulley F provided with a proecting leather portion F and adapted to engage a leather portion G on a driving pulley Gr. Both leather portions are shown segmental, but even if only G is segmental, I should obtain the desired result, viz., an intermittent drive of the pulley F in the direction indicated by the arrow 2, while the pulley G rotates continuously in the direetion indicated by the arrow 1, being driven, for instance, by means of a belt K running from the main pulley I to a pulley H secured to the same shaft as the driving pulley G.

The operation will be readily understood: WVhen the friction portions F G engage each other, the shaft E will receive a partia rotation which will carry the levers D and bar C upward, that is, away from the tobacco A, as indicated by the curved dotted line in Fig. 1. When the two friction portions come out of mesh, the bar G will be carried slightly farther up by its momentum, and will then drop by gravity to the position shown in Fig. 1, exerting a blow or pressure on the mass of tobacco A and forcing it toward the pocket between the rollers N, 0, thus preventing the formation of a void such as B, or at once destroying such void if it should begin to form. The rotary speed of the pulleys should of course be such as to allow the bar or hammer C to reach the tobacco and exert its blow thereon before the friction portions F G again come into engagement for the next upward movement of the bar G.

The intermittent movement of the bar C may be obtained by various mechanisms, and other modifications may be made without departing from the nature of my invention as set forth in the appended claims.

I claim as my invention:

1. The combination, with a container and adjoining rollers adapted to engage the matending across the container and adapted to drop by gravity and to engage the material on top, a lever carrying said bar, a rock shaft to which said lever is secured, and means for giving said shaft intermittently impulses serving to carry the said bar upward.

3. The combination, with a container and adjoining rollers adapted to engage the material placed in said container, of a bar extending across the container and adapted to engage the material on top, a lever carrying said bar, a rock shaft to which said lever is secured, a driven pulley on said rook shaft, and a driving pulley provided with a seg- Gopies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by

mental driving portion to engage the driven pulley periodically and swing the said bar intermittently away from the material in the container.

4;. The combination, with a container and adjoining rollers located one above the other at one side of the container to engage the material placed therein, of a bar extending transversely of the container and adapted to engage the material on the top, a lever carrying said bar, a rock shaft to which said lever is secured, a driven pulley on said rock shaft, and a driving pulley provided with a segmental driving portion to engage the driven pulley periodically and swing the said bar intermittently away from the material in the container.

In testimony whereof, I have signed this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

LEON A. CLEMENT.

Witnesses MANUEL S. CARMONA, JEAN G. DELLRUCT.

addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. G.

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