System for offloading articles from a conveyor belt

Abstract

A system for offloading bacon strips arranged side-by-side in equally spaced transverse rows on a continuously moving conveyor belt comprises a transfer station for transferring bacon strips from the conveyor belt to a serial arrangement on a second unidirectionally driven conveyor, a product grouping station for rearranging the bacon strips into groups, and a paper feed station for placing the groups on sheets of parchment paper prior to packaging. The transfer station includes a cyclically driven carriage which transfers the bacon strips in each transverse row from a carriage loading station comprising a plurality of cantilevered rotatably driven rollers contiguous to the conveyor belt to a carriage offloading station comprising a plurality of cantilevered conveyor belt assemblies. The product grouping station comprises hydraulically-actuated lifters which lift groups of the bacon strips clear of the unidirectionally driven conveyor as they proceed away from the transfer station, and then release the groups in time sequence to achieve separation on the conveyor. The transfer and product grouping stations are particularly adapted to handling thin strip-like products such as bacon slices, and employ novel control circuitry to obtain a continuous uniform operation for the loading system which does not interfere with the operation of the continuously moving conveyor belt. The system is particularly well suited for offloading fried bacon strips from the conveyor of a bacon frying oven.