Hauni-Werke Korber & Co Kg.

Korber Ag

Womako Maschinenkonstruktionen Gmbh

Alfill Engineering Gmbh & Co Kg

Fehland Engineering Gmbh

Dieter Schwenke

Nils Von Wichert

Willy Rudszinat

Otto Blidung

Werner Ringe

J&ouml;rn Richard Fehland

Michael Knabe

An apparatus for filling beverage containers under an inert-gas atmosphere. The apparatus includes a stationary filling tool ( ) to which the containers ( ) are moved and a device for filling the containers with inert gas prior to a beverage-filling procedure. A container engaging element ( ) of the filling tool is mounted in a processing chamber ( ) that is charged with inert gas and encloses the container ( ) in a fill-ready position. The containers are moved through an entry sluice space ( ), which can be shut off from the outside and from the processing chamber, by sluice doors ( ).

Beverage-filling device

An apparatus for sealing beverage containers with sealing caps, wherein the apparatus includes a transfer unit to transfer the caps from a single-track cap conveyor onto the bottles and a bottle conveyor on which the bottles are moved in several tracks in parallel rows. The transfer unit accepts the number of caps at the cap conveyor that are required to outfit a row of containers, and moves the caps into target positions above the row of containers. The caps in the target positions are gripped from above by cap carriers and deposited by the cap carriers onto the containers.

Apparatus for sealing beverage containers by means of caps

A stream of neighboring stacks of superimposed cigarette packs wherein the stacks can consist of or contain defective packs is advanced intermittently along a horizontal path. Stacks which contain or consist of defective packs are removed by the pockets of an indexible turret which is located in a vertical plane extending at right angles to the path of the stream. The defective pack or packs of a removed stack are expelled from the respective pocket in a first angular position of the pocket in which the latter is remote from the path for the stream, and the partially or completely emptied pocket is then indexed to a second position to receive one or more satisfactory packs which were expelled from previously removed stacks of defective and satisfactory packs before the thus filled pocket is returned into the path for the stream to fill a gap which has developed as a result of removal of a stack. A suction cup is provided to temporarily hold a removed satisfactory pack preparatory to introduction into a pocket which is about to return into the path for the stream of stacks.

Method of and apparatus for replacing defective packets in a stream of

A flexible web which is caused to run through a cross cutter to be severed at regular intervals in order to yield a series of discrete sections is engaged by a pair of holders which attract the web by suction immediately behind the severing plane when the cutter severs the web. The holders advance with the web and thereafter with the freshly formed section to prevent changes in orientation of the sections on their way to a removing station where they are expelled from the path of the web by block-shaped commodities which are draped into the respective sections. The surfaces of the holders are small and the length of each holder is a minute fraction of the length of a section, as considered in the longitudinal direction of the web. The holders are mounted on endless toothed belt or chain conveyors which advance the holders along an endless path having an elongated reach extending adjacent to the path of movement of the web and its sections toward, past and beyond the severing station.

Apparatus for cross cutting a running web

A heated sealing tool is actuated intermittently for fixed intervals of time to engage thermoplastic envelopes of successive cigarette packs which are supported by an indexible turret. In order to ensure that the intervals of engagement between the tool and successive envelopes are not altered when the speed of the prime mover of the packing machine is changed, the tool is mounted on one arm of a two-armed lever the other arm of which carries roller followers for two discrete coaxial cams which jointly actuate the tool through the medium of the lever. Each of the cams is driven at a speed which is proportional to the speed of the prime mover; however, one of the cams is angularly adjustable relative to the other cam by a gear motor or a bevel gear transmission in response to signals which denote changes in the speed of the prime mover so that the duration of intervals of engagement remains unchanged. If the cams have lobes which serve to hold the tool out of engagement with the envelopes, that portion of each revolution of the cams during which the lobes engage the respective followers is shortened if the speed of the prime mover is increased and vice versa. The cams can be driven in the same direction or in opposite directions.

Apparatus for intermittently actuating heating tools in packing machines

Blanks which are made of cardboard or the like and wherein the neighboring panels are flexible relative to each other are converted first into flat tubular preforms which are thereupon expanded prior to a change of orientation and introduction into a filling machine. The conversion is carried out on a horizontal support during stepwise transport of successive blanks along a stationary elongated one-piece flat pattern having progressively narrower portions at several successive deforming stations. At the first deforming station, a lap which is integral with one outermost panel of each blank is flexed relative to the respective outermost panel; at the second deforming station, the lap and the respective outermost panel are folded over the adjacent portion of the pattern; and the other outermost panel is bonded to the lap at the third deforming station. The width of the pattern at the first deforming station equals the combined width of three neighboring panels, and the width of the pattern at the second and third deforming stations equals the combined width of two neighboring panels. The thus obtained flat tubular preforms are expanded at an additional station where the width of the pattern equals the width of a single panel.

Method and apparatus for making collapsible containers

A turn-around device for filter cigarettes has a fluted conveyor which transports a row of filter cigarettes to be turned end-for-end to a first transfer station where the cigarettes are picked up by successive suction heads of a first set and are transpoted to a second transfer station while being simultaneously reoriented by 90.degree.. At the second transfer station, the partially reoriented cigarettes are transferred into successive suction heads of a second set which complete the reorientation and insert the inverted cigarettes into empty flutes of the conveyor at the first station. The suction heads of the first set are mounted on first links each of which is articulately connected to two disk-shaped supports rotating about parallel axes. The suction heads of the second set are mounted on second links each of which is articulately connected to two disk-shaped supports rotating about parallel axes. One support for the first links is coaxial with one support for the second links. The other support for the first links is coaxial with or eccentric with respect to the other support for the second links, depending upon whether the flutes for cigarettes to be turned are aligned with or staggered with respect to the flutes for the reoriented cigarettes.

Apparatus for changing the orientation of filter cigarettes or the like

A turn-around device for filter cigarettes wherein alternate flutes of a rotary drum-shaped conveyor transport pairs of filter cigarettes in such a way that the filter tips of each pair of cigarettes are adjacent to each other. One cigarette of each of successive pairs of filter cigarettes is transferred into one of two flutes of one of an annulus of inverting elements which are rotatably mounted on a rotary turntable. The turntable completes one full revolution about its axis while an inverting element completes one-half of a revolution counter to the direction of rotation of the turntable and about a second axis which is parallel to the axis of the turntable whereby a cigarette on the inverting element is automatically turned end-for-end when the inverting element returns to the station where its one flute has received a cigarette from the conveyor. The inverted cigarette is inserted into an empty flute of the conveyor in front of a first and behind a second non-inverted cigarette. The other flute of the inverting element simultaneously receives a non-inverted cigarette, and such cigarette is inverted during the next revolution of the turntable.

Apparatus for inverting cigarettes or the like

Apparatus which transports cigarettes from a pick-up station where the cigarettes move axially one behind the other to a delivery station where the cigarettes move sideways in one or more rows has one or more carriers which rotate about a horizontal or vertical axis and carry pick-up heads for cigarettes. The carriers are rotatable with as well as relative to a disk which is driven at a constant speed so that the heads move at a high speed during travel past the pick-up station and at a lower speed during movement past the delivery station. The mechanism for moving the carriers relative to the disk includes mating oval gears or bell crank levers which are pivotably mounted on the disk and are coupled to their carriers by means of links. The bell crank levers have followers which track a stationary cam. The carriers may constitute levers which are articulately mounted on a turret rotating in a horizontal plane in response to rotation of holder which moves the turret by means of several crank units. The upper ends of the levers are pivoted to the lower crank pins of the respective crank units and their lower ends carry the pick-up heads. Cams on the turret cause the levers to pivot toward the axis of the turret during movement toward the pick-up station and away from the axis of the turret during movement toward the delivery station. The crank units orient the heads so as to maintain each head in alignment with cigarettes at either station. Analogous orienting devices are provided for the rotating carriers.

Transfer apparatus for cigarettes or the like

A cigarette packing machine wherein a turret with equidistant prismatic mandrels is indexible stepwise so as to locate successive mandrels at a draping station during each period of idleness between successive stepwise advances. A sheet-like blank is draped around the mandrel at the draping station by a cylindrical brush which is eccentrically mounted on a disk rotating with a shaft which orbits about a fixed axis parallel to the axis of the turret. The shaft is rotated about its own axis by a gear train while it orbits about the fixed axis whereby the brush travels about the mandrel at the draping station to convert the blank into an open-ended tube which is thereupon converted into one layer of a cigarette pack.

Growing community of inventors

Hamburg, Germany

Dieter Schwenke