Abstract: A dispensing apparatus including a holding portion for holding a plurality of caps; a retaining device including a gap expandable between a retaining configuration preventing the cap from passing therethrough and a releasing configuration wherein the cap is releasable therethrough; a positioning device configured to receive the cap from the retaining device, the positioning device including an opening expandable between a narrow configuration preventing the cap from passing therethrough and a wide configuration wherein the cap is passable therethrough. The gap of the retaining device is expandable to the releasing configuration when the opening of the positioning device is retracted to the narrow configuration, and the gap of the retaining device is retractable to the retaining configuration when the opening of the positioning device is expanded to the wide configuration. A capping apparatus having such dispensing apparatus, and methods of dispensing a cap, and of capping, are disclosed.

Abstract: A tray for vibratory conveying of food articles from a hopper is provided. The tray includes a tray body, food inlet portion, and a food outlet portion. An upwardly extending dividing member divides the tray into at least two food inlet conveyor passageways, the inlet conveyor passageways merging into a single food passageway that extends to the food outlet portion. The single food passageway may have an initially wide portion and subsequently narrow to a narrow portion as it approaches a discharge end. This arrangement helps to declump food items, preferably causing food items the size of chicken nuggets to be conveyed in a single-file arrangement along the single food passageway. The single food passageway is preferably non-linear, and may, for example, have a zigzag or serpentine configuration to promote accurate dispensing of food items.

Abstract: Apparatus including a vending machine compartment including a dispensing door openable to permit removal of merchandise from the compartment, the compartment being pivotedly connected to a box assembly, and wherein the dispensing door includes a link element that is constrained to move along a track formed in the box assembly such that the dispensing door is not openable at a first portion of the track and is openable at a second portion of the track.

Abstract: An exemplary fastener feeder includes a pair of guiders, a slot cover and a blocker. The guiders define a sliding slot therebetween. Each guider includes a sloped part and a level part, bodies of the fasteners are capable of being received in the sliding slot, and a head of each fastener is capable of sliding down from the sloped parts and stopping on the level parts. The slot cover defines an opening for providing a path through which a fastener pickup device can pass through and engage with a fastener located on the level parts. The blocker is located below the level parts. When the fastener pickup device moves the fastener head engaged therewith away from the opening and a length of the fastener is greater than a distance between the blocker and the level parts, the fastener is blocked by blocker and disengaged from the fastener pickup device.

Abstract: A queue of randomly oriented chips is advanced down a track. Each chip in the queue is sequentially and individually elevated into a pneumatic circuit and pressed against a mirrored surface of an upper slide member to which it adheres if the chip was oriented with upwardly disposed solder lands. A jet of compressible fluid insufficient in magnitude to dislodge the chip is injected in a direction toward the queue. If the chip, alternatively, was oriented with the solder lands down, this fluid jet propels the chip about the oval-shaped pneumatic circuit so as to reorient the chip with the lands extending in the desired upward orientation, whereupon the chip is injected into a storage magazine.

Abstract: A machine for sorting and orienting containers including a main hopper (2) for receiving randomly a plurality of containers (1) or bottles to be sorted, having any convenient configuration and a bottom (4) with a peripheral edge portion at a predetermined distance from the side wall of the hopper (2) to provide a space through which the containers can drop, by gravity towards a lower section, a lateral aperture (32) in the side wall of the hopper in a curved lateral area (13) preceding the container unloading station (14), the aperture being adapted to remove mainly by centrifugal force malpositioned containers housed only partially in and protruding from holding and transporting units (6), or located external to them and conveyed by other containers, the aperture communicating with a recovering auxiliary hopper (15), external to the main hopper and a coupled belt type conveyor (16) associated with the external hopper for recycling containers into the loading area preceding the lateral aperture (32).

Abstract: The invention pertains to a device for orientating workpieces, more especially brush bodies, of the type that is formed by a feeding box for workpieces; a transport device which conveys the workpieces one by one opposite to a detecting device and an orienter which place all detected workpieces in the same position, in order to finally feed them into a magazine or processing machine. The detecting and orientating devices are formed by a support which is located opposite to a transport device consisting of a drum and fixed to the side wall of the device, to which support, radially movable in relation to the aforesaid transport drum, is fixed a bridge which, on one side of the transport drum and in the path of the workpieces. A stop is provided on the other side of the transport drum, and coaxially with a first stop.

Abstract: A method of sorting articles having major and minor surfaces such that they normally assume a position presenting one major surface against a support surface and an opposed major surface spaced from said support surface wherein the articles are aligned on a support surface and advanced in a guided single file past a discriminating means which alters the path of advance of those articles having a first given orientation of its major surface relative to the guide means. The articles of the opposite major surface orientation relative to the guide means support surface are thus segregated. Both segregated groups of articles can be merged following their orientation to a like major surface relationship to a reference support surface.A turntable imposes centrifugal forces on the articles to be sorted to pass them to a tangential guide chute in single file.