F. Jos. Lamb Company

Lamb Technicon Corp.

Android International, Inc.

James T Graham

John H Brems

Gerald E Johnson

A pocket conveyor, specifically a pocket elevator, in which a plurality of spools are cantilevered from an endless drive chain. The spools cooperate with each other and with stationary guide rails to form a series of pockets for conveying workpieces between feed and discharge stations. Various embodiments of the feed station include a starwheel rotating in synchronism with urging workpieces into recesses between the starwheel fingers. This guide surface has a clearance at the inlet and which cooperates with deformable construction of the starwheel fingers to prevent workpiece jam at the feed station. Another embodiment of the feed station includes a flat angulated surface for receiving workpieces by gravity and a flexible reach of chain extending at an angle toward the workpiece surface for automatically accommodating itself to workpiece availability without jamming. The discharge station includes a second starwheel with fingers which enter successive pockets and displace workpieces therefrom.

Chain-driven pocket elevator

A gravity operated conveyor comprises a workpiece supporting trolley having at least two independent unpowered wheels for supporting the trolley on a track. One of the wheels engages the track when the trolley is empty and the other engages the track when the trolley is loaded with a workpiece. Each wheel has a speed retarding mechanism operably connected therewith so that the speed retarding force on the trolley is greater when the trolley is loaded than when the trolley is empty.

Speed control for gravity operated trolleys

For use in a work processing line for workpieces, a workpiece storage system including a topologically closed loop track means having downwardly sloping surfaces coupled with elevators and lowerators in the loop, and work holding, gravity-operated pallets to run on said tracks having track engaging wheels equipped with retarding means responsive to wheel angular velocity and utilizing wheels of different diameters on the track depending on the loaded or unloaded condition of the pallets to control the speed of the pallets. Auxiliary track means, pallet loaders and unloaders, and switching mechanisms are incorporated in the system with elevators and lowerators to allow the storage system to function between multiple work processing lines, between single and multiple lines or between multiple and single lines to increase the flexibility of a work processing activity and reduce downtime.

Workpiece storage system

A gravity conveyor retarder includes a housing having a cylindrical cavity in which a rotor connected with a rotatable member of the gravity conveyor rotates. The housing includes an annular reservoir surrounding the cavity and separated therefrom by an annular wall provided with a plurality of circumferentially spaced, radially extending, restricted passageways so that, regardless of the circumferential orientation of the housing, any air in the cavity will migrate upwardly therein, through the restricted passageways and accumulate above the liquid level at the upper end of the reservoir.

Retarder for gravity conveyors

Apparatus for imparting reciprocating motion to a double-acting hydraulic piston and cylinder motor assembly. Hydraulic fluid is supplied through pressure lines alternately to opposite ends of the cylinder by two pumps. The pumps are operated so that one is on its pressure stroke while the other is on its suction stroke. The valving is such that fluid flowing out of the cylinder is discharged to an unpressured reservoir and fluid flowing into the pumps on their suction strokes is drawn from the same reservoir.

Growing community of inventors

Birmingham, MI, United States of America

James T Graham