Japan Tobacco Inc.

Yasuhiro Otaka

Shinzo Kida

Chihiro Hanaoka

An appearance inspection device for a rod-like article comprises a rotatable main drum () interposed as a feeding drum in a drum train that defines a feeding path in a filter cigarette manufacturing machine, upstream and downstream bypass drum trains () located in the outside of the main drum () and receiving a filter cigarette (FC) from the main drum () to bypass the cigarette, and an inspection camera () situated between the bypass drum trains () in a circumferential direction of the main drum (). The inspection camera () directly or indirectly images exposed circumferential surfaces of filter cigarettes (FC), that are different from one another, when the filter cigarettes (FC) are conveyed on the main drum () and each of the bypass drum trains ().

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Tokyo, Japan

Yasuhiro Otaka