The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 16, 1977
Filed:
Nov. 17, 1975
William G Verwey, Phoenix, MD (US);
Stephen Stanton, Baltimore, MD (US);
Precision Industries, Inc., Baltimore, MD (US);
Abstract
An apparatus is provided for organizing and arranging bundles, preferably bundles of folded or unfolded corrugated boxes or blanks, into stacks which include a plurality of layers. The apparatus includes a vertical conveyor for supplying bundles to a loading station, at which one or more operators or mechanical arms are located, which function to remove the bundles for the loading station and to position them in a desired pattern on a horizontally movable support to form a layer. After a complete layer is formed, the support is removed from beneath the layer so that the layer of bundles is deposited on a stack-forming device which includes a vertically movable platform which is incrementally actuated downwardly each time another layer is deposited thereon to form the stack. The formed stack is then discharged from the stack-forming device and straps are applied thereto. Actuating means are provided for removing the support from beneath each formed layer and for lowering the stack-forming device after the stack is formed. The output of the actuating means is supplied to a programmer which in turn regulates the speed of the vertical conveyor to control the rate of supply of bundles to the loading station so that it is synchronized with the rate at which bundles are arranged into layers to form stacks to thereby avoid jam-ups or slow-downs in the system.