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:
Nov. 19, 1991
Filed:
Jun. 12, 1989
Laurie M Reid, Casselberry, FL (US);
Archie Koster, Casselberry, FL (US);
Gary D Hunt, Longwood, FL (US);
Simplimatic Engineering Company, Lynchburg, VA (US);
Abstract
An improved tray packer-shrink wrapper is provided in a preferred embodiment with a computer control to permit relatively efficient changeover from processing a batch of one product size to a batch of another product size. A servocontrolled pin grouper is provided wherein at least two sets of pins such as pins A and B are mounted on corresponding endless chains such as chains A and B, which endless chains are independently cyclable by corresponding independently controlled servomotors A and B. The pin sets are inserted into a row of articles positioned on a stationary deadplate, with one pin set leading a trailing pin set, and the leading pin set is accelerated with respect to the trailing pin set to separate articles downstream of the leading pin set into an article group, which separation operation is continuously carried out in a cyclical fashion to group articles from the row. The computer control can be readily reprogrammed to control servomotors A and B differently for different sized articles and articles groups. Also, a servocontrolled film feed device and a servocontrolled wrapping device responsive to the same computer control are provided.