Curt G. Joa, Inc.

Werner Schweizer

Daniel J McGuire

Edmund A Radzins

Edward D Archer

Ari Venetjoki

Randal D Lasure

A pair of closed loop chains running in parallelism have uniformly spaced apart paddles on them for transporting an article such as a pad between each paddle to a pad ejection station. A shaft orbits about an axis which is parallel to the direction in which the paddle conveyor is moving. The shaft carries a plurality of ejector rods which are mounted on a sleeve that is slidable reversibly axially on the orbiting shaft. After the orbiting rods collectively eject a series of pads from the paddles, the shaft continues its orbital movement until it reaches the back side of the pads again. While the rods are passing through the paddles to eject the number of pads composing a stack, the sleeve on the orbiting shaft is translated axially in the same direction and at the same speed as the paddle conveyor is moving. The sleeve is shifted by having a cam follower thereon come into contact with a stationary cam when the rods begin their passage through the spaces between the paddles. When rods clear the spaces between the paddles, a spring restores the rods to their initial position. The orbiting shaft can be caused to dwell in its orbit to allow a selected number of pads to arrive on the conveyor at the ejection station before orbiting the rods to cause ejection of the articles is initiated.

High speed variable count mechanical stacker

Apparatus for turning pads through an angle of 90.degree. about an axis perpendicular to their plane as they are orbited with a drum from a pad pickup station to a pad transfer station. The drum has a plurality of circumferentially spaced apart supports inside of it. A hollow shaft extends radially out of each support and has a vacuum pickup shoe on it. A pinion is fastened concentrically to the hollow shaft and a gear in the support turns the pinion. A cam follower engages in the groove of a stationary circular cam. As the drum rotates the cam follower arrives in a part of the cam groove which turns the gear and results in the hollow shaft and the vacuum shoe being turned through an angle of 90.degree. as the shoe is orbited from the pad pickup station to the pad transfer station. Flexible tubes connect ports in the base of the drum to the hollow vacuum shaft. The ports run over a curved groove in a stationary vacuum platen at times when vacuum must be applied to the shoe and run off of the groove and cut off the vacuum of the shoe at the pad transfer station where pads are transferred to a rotating vacuum drum.

Rotary pad turner

A vertically extending stripper bar is manipulated to strip a stack of articles from a conveyor while the conveyor is carrying the articles downwardly at high speed. A carriage is mounted for being vertically movable. A pneumatic cylinder is coupled to the carriage. The stripper bar is supported on horizontal guide rods which slide in the vertically movable carriage. A pneumatic cylinder moves the stripper bar horizontally in and out relative to the conveyor. When the correct number of articles has accumulated next to the bar, a stripping cycle is initiated. This involves activating one pneumatic cylinder which pushes the stripper bar horizontally across the path of the downwardly moving articles. A gear rack is mounted to the vertically movable carriage and it is engaged by a gear which begins to drive the carriage and stripper bar downwardly at the same speed that the articles are moving downwardly at the instant the stripper bar begins to move horizontally. At the instant when the stripping cycle begins, a clutch is engaged to make the gear drive the carriage downwardly by driving the rack. When the stack of articles is cleared of the paddles, the clutch is disengaged and the gear can turn freely. The pneumatic cylinder which is coupled to the carriage drives the carriage upwardly back to its home position in readiness for stripping the next stack to accumulate.

Growing community of inventors

Boynton Beach, FL, United States of America

Werner Schweizer