GB1202413A - Improvements in or relating to conveyors and conveyor belts - Google Patents

Abstract

1,202,413. Endless conveyers; feeding and delivering sheets; packaging. F. J. FLEISCHAUER. 18 Sept., 1967 [27 Oct., 1966; 29 May, 1967], No. 42454/67. Headings B8A, B8C and B8R. A perforated endless conveyer belt is arranged to pass over an open face of a chamber connected with a source of fluid suction or alternatively of fluid pressure. The belt may be of slatted construction (Figs. 1-8, not shown). The slats may carry members (66) for effecting a seal between the belt and the wall (14) of the chamber (12) adjacent the open face of the latter. The chamber (12) may be divided into a series of separate chambers each connected to the source of suction (28<SP>1</SP>) (Fig. 7, not shown) by valves (100). The belt may be of continous form comprising a foam layer (110) (Fig. 10A, not shown) overlaid by an apertured canvas layer (116<SP>1</SP>). The belt may be stiffened by transverse rods (372) and may have its edges running in channel-shaped seals (376) (Fig. 26, not shown). The foam layer (110) may be corrugated, indented, grooved, or otherwise shaped, in order to receive correspondingly shaped loads e.g. corrugated plastic sheets. Other loads may be wood or glass sheets. The belt may be formed of a number of parallel perforated strips (144) (Figs. 11 and 12, not shown). In Fig. 13, the belt reaction is supported by a vacuum chamber 170 against the open face of a number of rollers 166. Suction is supplied to the chamber 170 via a plenum chamber 180 from a pump 182 having a filter 194. In Fig. 16A, articles 198 are lifted from a roller conveyer 216. Because the suction chamber extends to include within its sphere of influence the perforated periphery of the upper return roller 114<SP>1</SP> of the conveyer, the articles 198 are carried round and on to a roller conveyer 217. Articles A, B, C . . . on a conveyer 278 (Fig. 19), are picked up by the suction of a conveyer and are discharged on to corresponding conveyers A, B, C ... by destroying the suction at the discharge point by the action of a plate 240 pushed down by a solenoid 276. The latter is operated at the correct instant by a signal from a generator 284 activated with appropriate delay by a signal from a photo-cell 280. Instead of a plate 276, vacuum may be destroyed in a part or parts of the vacuum chamber by the operation of valvelike baffles (248) (Figs. 18C and 18D, not shown). The belt may be cleaned by pressure or suction applied through a slot (338) (Fig. 23). Alternatively the belt may be engaged by a roller (344) (Fig. 24, not shown) which carries brushes (346), dips into a container (354) of cleaning fluid, and has perforations connected to suction or pressure. Instead of air being drawn in through the belt to the chamber suction from atmosphere, it may be drawn from a chamber (382) (Fig. 27, not shown) which is connected to the output of the suction motor. Thus the air flow is in a closed circuit. In Fig. 29, a suction chamber 412 is formed with a series of valve housings 416. A valve 420 in each housing is normally held by gravity in duct-closing position. When an approaching load 423 obturates the duct, the increased depression causes the valve to be lifted. The valves 420 may alternatively be spring-loaded. When a chamber 12 of pressure higher than atmospheric is used, the plane of the conveyer belt (110<SP>1</SP>) may be inclined laterally to the horizontal (Fig. 25, not shown). Articles (362) then slide laterally under gravity and reduced friction due to the uprising air jets and engage a side rail (370). In the application to unstacking articles 298<SP>1</SP> (Fig. 21) from a lift device 308, the top layer of the stack is fed on to the conveyer by the action of a reciprocating plate 312 connected to a piston and cylinder device 318. Rollers 328 of a receiving roller conveyer 306 are canted with respect to the general direction of conveyance so as to feed the articles into succession in single file. In a further embodiment (Fig. 17) sheets 212 of glass or plywood are stacked on a device 210 by being picked up from an endless conveyer 216<SP>1</SP> by an endless conveyer belt 110<SP>1</SP> of the kind in which the sheets are picked up by, and held to the belt 110<SP>1</SP> by the action of suction (see Division B8). Suction is applied through apertures in the belt by a vacuum chamber 202<SP>1</SP>. As the sheets pass from the zone of the chamber 202<SP>1</SP> they drop by gravity, on the stack 220. Similar apparatus (Fig. 20, not shown) may be used to unstack sheets from a pile (298) on a continuously-moving lift device (294) and deposit them on to a service belt conveyer. In order to protect individual sheets, they may be interleaved with sheets of porous paper.