US2890553A - Case filling machine - Google Patents

Description

June 16, 1559 Filed NOV. 16, 1953 C. L. DAY HAL CASE FILLING MACHINE 18 She ets-sheet- -l INVENTORS ATTORNEYS c. L. DAY' ETAL 2,890,553

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AM W Y B QR m-wnw pa SM musk 2.8% '3 Patented June 16, 1959 CASE FILLING MACHINE (larl L. Day and Wilmer D. Regnier, Baltimore, Md., assignors to Crown Cork & Seal Company, Inc., Baltimore, Md.,' a corporation of New York Application November 16, 1953, Serial No. 392,131 51 Claims. (Cl. 53-61) The present invention relates to case filling machines and, more particularly, to machines for placing containers such as bottles in cases or cartons.

The machine disclosed herein is of the type disclosed in the application of Allan C. Davis, Serial No. 192,210, filed October 26, 1950 for Case Filling Machine, now Patent No. 2,701,085, issued February 1, 1955.

The embodiment of the invention hereinafter disclosed is described in connection with the positioning of bottles in open-topped cases or cartons. However, it will be understood from the following objects and description that the invention is applicable to the handling of containers or articles other than bottles, and to the placing of articles in packages other than open-topped cases orcartons.

An object of the invention is to provide arrangements to enable a plurality of rows of articles to be simultaneously delivered to a case filling machine or the like.

Another object of the invention is the provision of means to form a plurality of rows of articles from a smaller number of rows.

A further object of the invention is the provision of conveyor structure suitable for moving one or more rows of articles to a case filling machine or other machine adapted to handle articles.

Still another object of the invention is the provision of a mechanism operable to move a group of articles from one supporting area to another supporting area and which will enable the articles to be spaced apart during such movement.

A further object of the invention is the provision of means to carry articles downwardly to a case, with means of optimum simplicity to control the dropping of the articles from the carrier during downward movement.

Another object of the invention is the provision of means to clamp and center a case and which is of optimum efliciency and simplicity.

Still another object of the invention is the provision of an article holder for use in lowering articles to a case, and which article holder is of simple construction and readily can be assembled and repaired.

Still another object of the invention is the provision of controls for a case filling machine which will be certain in action and of such design that the cycle of operation of the machine will be automatically controlled.

Other objects and advantages of the invention willbe apparent from the following specification and accompanying drawings.

Referring to the drawings:

Figure l is a plan view of the case filling machine, the front of the machine being at the left;

Figures 2 and 3 are plan views of successive portions of the bottle infeed conveyor structure. If the upper edge of the sheet bearing Figures 2 and 3 is placed against the lower edge of the sheet bearing Figure 1, and with the arrows 2 of the thus opposed edges of the sheets in registry, the manner of delivering bottles from the Figure 2 conveyor portion to the conveyor portion of Figure 1 will be apparent. Bottles initially delivered to the conveyor structure of Figure 3 continue movement upon the conveyor structure of Figure 2 and then move to the conveyor structure of Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a front elevation of the machine with the bottle carrier in elevated position, the view looking toward Figure 1 from the left;

Figure 5 is a view similar to Figure 4 but with the bottle carrier in lowered position; Figure 6 shows the machine in side elevation, the view showing the bottle conveyor in vertical section on the line 6-6 of Figure 2. It will be noted that Figure 6 is taken looking toward Figure 1 from the bottom edge of that figure and also looks toward Figure 4 from the right;

Figure 7 is a left hand elevation of the machine, the view looking toward Figure 1 from the top edge of that view and looking toward Figure 4 from the left;

Figure 8 is a plan view showing the two container supporting areas of the machine and with the bottle pushing mechanism partially advanced from the position thereof illustrated in Figure 1;

Figure 9 shows the bottle pushing mechanism on a larger scale than Figure 8, the view being in plan with the top cover plate removed, and showing the parts in the position they occupy when the pushing stroke has started;

Figure 10 is a plan view of the machine with the bottle pushing mechanism at the extreme end of its pushing stroke;

Figure 11 is a view similar to Figure 9 but with the bottle detector plungers in normal or non-pushing position;

Figure 12 views Figure 11 from the bottom edge of the latter figure and the portions shown in section generally are taken on the line 12-12 of Figure 11;

Figure 13 is a fragmentary detail of a portion of the Figure 11 structure, the view looking toward Figure 11 from the direction of the arrow 13;

Figure 14 .is a horizontal sectional view on the line 14-14 of Figure 5;

Figure 15 is a vertical sectional view on the line 15-15 of Figure 1, with portions broken away. The view includes a solid line showing of the bottle carrier in its normal or raised position and a dotted line showing of the carrier in lowered position;

Figure 16 is a vertical sectional view of the upper portion of the machine on the line 16-16 of Figure 10, the view showing the bottle carrier in vertical section on the line 16A-16A of Figure 17;

Figure 17 is a vertical section of the upper portion of the machine, the view being on the line 17-17 of Figure 16;

Figure 18 is a vertical sectional view in the same plane as Figure 17, the view showing the lower portion of the machine with the bottle carrier in lowered position;

Figure 19 shows the case conveyor and case centering means in plan, the view being taken on the line 19-19 of Figure 4;

Figure 20 is a fragmentary detail of the case clamping and centering mechanism, the view showing that mecha- 3 in detail, the view being taken on the line 26-26 of Figure 1;

Figure 27 is a plan view of the bottle infeed mechanism of Figure 26 with the top wall removed;

Figure 28 is a fragmentary view of the case clamping and centering mechanism, the view looking toward the Figure 19 structure from the direction of the arrow 28 in Figure 19, and

Figures 29 and 30, when positioned with the top edge of Figure 28 adjacent the lower edge of Figure 27, diagrammatically show the machine and its control devices.

The operation and construction of the apparatus generally may be described as follows:

Referring to Figure 3, each of the conveyors 50 and 52 moves bottles B to be cased toward the machine in a single row from one of two filling machines or other sources of containers to be cased. T he bottles moving on the conveyors 50 and 52 will be formed into a double row as they are guided on to a third conveyor 56 by the converging portion 55 of the guide rails 54 of Figure 3 so that, as shown in Figure 3, the containers of the two rows on conveyer 56 may be abreast, the guide rails 54 along conveyor 56 being spaced apart a distance slightly greater than the diameter of two containers. It will be understood that if a single filling machine or other source has a sufficiently high output of bottles, such output can be placed directly upon the conveyor 56 by a single-line conveyor.

Referring to Figure 2, the lines of containers moving on the conveyor 56 will be delivered to a fixed distributor plate 58 and pointed divider 60 which will form the containers into two double rows as subseqently described, so that four rows of containers will move from distributor plate 58 on the wide conveyor 62, two rows on each side of the divider 60. Divider 60 has a fiat spring plate or deflector 61 extending in a V from each diverging surface thereof, the plates 61 tending to deflect bottles slightly away from the central dividing wall which continues beyond divider 60. The containers of each double row again may be abreast because the space between each side of divider 69 and the opposite guide rail 54 is wide enough to permit two bottles to move abreast. A second distributor plate 64 near the outfeed end of divider 60 will assist in dividing each of these two double rows of containers into two single rows which thereafter continue movement on conveyor 62 between vertically arranged guide plates 66 which, as shown in the lower right hand portion of Figure I, extend to the gate mechanism 68. As shown in Figure 1, conveyor 62 extends almost across the top of the machine table 70, the upper run of conveyor 62 being flush with the upper surface 72 of the table. As appears from Figure 6, conveyor 62 actually consists of two conveyors moving side by side in synchronism.

As is hereinafter explained, the gates 73 of the gate mechanism 68, shown in more detail in Figures 26 and 27, normally will be open to permit conveyor 62 to move containers through the gate mechanism in four rows and between guide bars 74. As shown in Figure 1, in the embodiment of the machine disclosed herein, each of the four rows formed between the bars 74 will contain six bottles, with the leading bottle of each row adapted to contact with one of four trip plungers 76 forming part of the pusher mechanism 80. Each plunger 76 preferably is under such spring tension that it will not be actuated by pressure of less than twelve bottles thereon, through this pressure may be increased or re duced as desired and depending upon the rate of supply of bottles as well as the rate of supply of cases in which to position the bottles.

As best indicated in Figure 8, the pusher mechanism 80 includes a box like casing 82 reciprocable upon two fixed and horizontal slide rods 84. The guide bars 74 extend from the inner wall 85 of casing 82 to a point adjacent the gate mechanism 68. When the casing 82 of pusher mechanism 80 is in the bottle receiving position shown in Figure 1, the bars 74 will be in alignment with corresponding vertical plates 66 of the infeed gate mechanism. It will be noted from Figure 1 that each trip plunger 76 is midway between two adjacent bars 74.

When the pressure of the four rows of bottles moves all of the plungers 76 from the solid line position of Figure 11 to the position indicated in Figure 11 by the dotted line 76a, mechanism hereinafter described in detail will first cause the gates 73 of gate mechanism 68 to swing from a position in alignment with the guides 66 and bars 74 to the position indicated in Figure 27 to thereby segregate the four rows of six bottles between the bars 74 from the other bottles on conveyor 62, as well as hold back the latter bottles. Then pusher mechanism will move to the left as viewed in Figure 1, that is, toward the front of the machine, to move the bottles from the bottle supporting area provided by conveyor 62 to the bottle supporting area provided by a. horizontally movable grid 90. As shown in Figure 15, grid has the upper surface of its bottle supporting bars 92 flush with the table surface 72. During the first portion of this movement of the pusher mechanism 80, the plungers '76 will be further retracted by means hereinafter described to the position indicated in Figure 8 at 76b so that the outer ends of the plungers will be flush with the face 94 of the pusher mechanism casing wall 85.

This further reaction of the plungers 76 will enable bottles to move lengthwise of each row and the bars 74 when the bottles come into engagement with guide bars fixed to table 70 and which extend across and above grid 90 parallel to the bottle supporting bars 92 of the grid. In more detail, it will be apparent from Figure 8 (which shows the plungers 76 fully retracted) that as the bottles are moved to the left in that figure to be positioned on grid 90, the six bottles in each of the four rows will be forced apart lengthwise of the rows by the stationary guide bars 100. The retraction of the plungers 76 permits the bottles to rearrange themselves to meet this condition. The guide bars 100 have their inlet ends arranged along a shallow V, with the end 100a of the center bar 100 extending closest to the approaching bottles. As shown in Figure 16, the fixed guide bars 100 are arranged in upper and lower sets, the upper set engaging the top portions of the bottles and the lower set engaging the base portions of the bottles.

Figure 10 shows the pusher 80 at the limit of its forward or bottle pushing stroke. It will be observed from this view that the surface 94 of the pusher mechanism casing 82 cooperates with the nearest bar 100 to guide the adjacent line of bottles.

In accordance with the practice described in said Davis application, the grid 90 shown in Figure 16 now will be moved to the left as viewed in that figure so that the bottle supporting bars 92 of the grid will be brought into vertical alignment with the lower set of fixed guide bars 100. Hence, the bottles will drop through grid 90 and into the holders 102 of the basket of carrier which, at this moment, will be in uppermost position. By suitable circuit arrangements hereinafter described, after carrier 110 has moved down far enough that the bottles will be clear of the pusher bars 74, the pusher mechanism 80 will return to the right in Figure 1 to bottle receiving position above conveyor 62. During such return movement, the plungers 76 will be restored to their outermost position and when pusher mechanism 80 reaches its normal position shown in Figure l, the gate mechanism 68 will reopen to permit conveyor 62 to again fill the bottle supporting area defined by the arms 74 of pusher mechanism 80.

Referring to Figure 17, at the time that the bottles drop into the holders 102 of the basket 110, the rotat-

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