Simplimatic Engineering Company

Gary D Hunt

Laurie M Reid

Archie Koster

Dave Cooley

Roger K Calabrese

Gregory S Gulik

Keith B Weisenstein

David A Foskett

John M Connor

A laning conveyor is provided which may be used as an infeed for a packer. The laning conveyor comprises a central lane guide and a movable lane guide unit including at least two lane guides connected thereto spaced apart a first lane width. The unit is mounted adjacent the central lane guide to form a lane therebetween having the first lane width. The unit is movable to provide the lane with a second lane width. A method of laning articles is also disclosed.

Laning conveyor with changeover system

An improved tray packer-shrink wrapper is provided in a preferred embodiment with a computer control to permit relatively efficient changeover from processing a batch of one product size to a batch of another product size. A servocontrolled pin grouper is provided wherein at least two sets of pins such as pins A and B are mounted on corresponding endless chains such as chains A and B, which endless chains are independently cyclable by corresponding independently controlled servomotors A and B. The pin sets are inserted into a row of articles positioned on a stationary deadplate, with one pin set leading a trailing pin set, and the leading pin set is accelerated with respect to the trailing pin set to separate articles downstream of the leading pin set into an article group, which separation operation is continuously carried out in a cyclical fashion to group articles from the row. The computer control can be readily reprogrammed to control servomotors A and B differently for different sized articles and articles groups. Also, a servocontrolled film feed device and a servocontrolled wrapping device responsive to the same computer control are provided.

Apparatus and method for packaging articles

An improved palletizer is provided for receiving successive groups of articles in a pattern forming area and transferring the groups in succession to a stacking area on a pallet. A servocontrolled sweep system transfers article groups from the pattern formings to the stacking area for stacking one group on top of the other as the pallet is indexed downward by a hoist system after each successive group, and a carriage system interleaves separator sheets between successive groups. A programmable logic controller controls the servocontrolled sweep system in accordance with a velocity characteristic designed to increase machine speed and efficiency.

Computer controlled article handling device

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Longwood, FL, United States of America

Gary D Hunt