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:
Sep. 08, 1987
Filed:
Jan. 31, 1983
F Allan Anderson, San Francisco, CA (US);
Henry C Chen, Fremont, CA (US);
Vito A DiMucci, Saratoga, CA (US);
Roger C Wang, San Jose, CA (US);
Peco Controls Corporation, Milpitas, CA (US);
Abstract
A monitoring and control system for a fluid container filler line having an empty container in-feed conveyor (11), a multivalve fill station (14), a multihead scanner station (17), a discharge conveyor (20) and a fill height detector (25), the system comprising a sensing module (22) having a first sensor (44) to indicate the first of a sequence of numbered valves with means to reset a valve counter, a second sensor (45) to count each valve of the sequence and controller means (50) responsive to said sensors to spacially track each container (12) through the system and to identify the particular fill valve for each particular container. A detector (54) is responsive to the controller and signals from the height detector to detect an improperly filled faulty container and identify the particular number valve which did the faulty filling. The invention also includes detection of faulty seamer operation, means to automatically sample containers for test purposes and means to prevent an incoming container from taking a position to be filled by a faulty valve. Means are also included to analyze the flow of containers and the quality of filling and predict line fill losses attributable to faulty valves which information is used to decide if a faulty valve shall be rendered inoperative.