Japan Tobacco Inc.

Koichiro Obara

Tadao Etani

Tatsuya Hasegawa

Masaaki Tanigawa

Hiromitsu Ohara

Filter mounting apparatus

A plurality of cigarette piling heads are provided on a cigarette piling drum. The same number of cigarettes as the number of cigarettes in a cigarette package are piled on each cigarette piling head. An intermediate drum includes the same number of cigarette holding heads as the number of the cigarette piling heads and is provided at an axial end of the cigarette piling drum. A pushing-out drum has the same number of pushers as the number of the cigarette piling heads and is disposed at the other axial end of the cigarette piling drum. The cigarettes on each cigarette piling head are transferred to the corresponding cigarette holding head. The intermediate drum is disposed adjacent to and at a side of the first drum of a packing apparatus. The cigarette holding heads swing synchronously with packing heads of the intermediate drum. The cigarette piling heads swing synchronously with the cigarette holding heads of the first drum.

Apparatus for piling and transferring cigarettes

An apparatus for arranging, side by side, cigarettes to form three cigarette layers, seven, six and seven cigarettes in the corresponding layers, the total number being twenty cigarettes and piling the cigarette layers on one after another in a staggered way to form a three-layered cigarette package. Twenty cigarette supplying passages are provided so as to communicate with the bottom portion of a hopper. Cigarettes are supplied to the cigarette supplying passages in an aligned state. Cigarettes are taken out one by one from the bottom end of each cigarette supplying passage and supplied to three cigarette arranging drums on which three cigarette layers are formed. The cigarette layers on these cigarette arranging drums are transferred to a cigarette piling drum through transfer drums disposed between the cigarette arranging drums and the cigarette piling drum and piled on each cigarette piling head of the cigarette piling drum to form a three-layered cigarette stack. The arrangement of the transfer drums between the cigarette transfer drums and the cigarette piling drum widens the distance between the adjacent cigarette arranging drums, allows the cigarette supplying passages to extend substantially vertically and linearly, thereby facilitating smooth transfer of cigarette in the apparatus and reducing the diameter of the cigarette piling drum so as to speed up the operation of the apparatus.

Apparatus for arranging and piling cigarettes

A piling machine of a cigarette packaging apparatus comprises a number of transferring drums disposed between the respective aligning drums of the apparatus for aligning a given number of cigarettes in rows and the piling drum for piling rows of cigarettes into layers in an orderly and staggered manner in the cigarette packaging apparatus. The transferring drums are provided with suction nozzles and ejection nozzles so that the system is capable of holding cigarettes coming from the aligning drums to the transferring drums by negative pressure in the suction nozzles and ejecting the cigarettes on any of the transferring drums of the apparatus by applying compressed air through the ejection nozzles whenever one or more than one defective cigarettes are detected in the row of cigarettes on any of the transfer ring drums or when the row of cigarettes on the transferring drum contains an insufficient number of cigarettes.

Cigarette ejecting apparatus of a cigarette packaging apparatus

A variable speed transferring device for a cigarette parallel-arranging device used in a cigarette wrapping apparatus comprises variable speed transferring drums disposed between a plurality of cigarette parallel-arranging drums for holding groups of parallel-arranged cigarettes and a cigarette piling drum. Each variable speed transferring drum is provided on its peripheral surface with holding grooves for holding at least one group of parallel-arranged cigarettes and is rotated by a variable speed driving mechanism at a lower speed when the holding grooves face the variable speed transferring drums and at a higher speed when the holding grooves face the piling drum. Since the peripheral speed of the receiving drums disposed upstream of the variable speed transferring drums is lowered, the shock applied to cigarettes when they are received by the receiving drums from cigarette supplying passageways is reduced and the speed-up of the operation of the variable speed transferring device is achieved.

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Tokyo, Japan

Koichiro Obara