Abstract: An apparatus for grouping together articles in groups of variable quantities for feeding to packaging machines in a continuous movement has a pair of links to corresponding cursor-guide members in a mirror-image arrangement and is provided for positioning at least one of the cursor-guide members rotatably about a common axis drive shaft arrangement with the corresponding guide members rotatable about corresponding motorized shafts having mutually coaxial axes ending in counterthrusters and thrusters respectively of the continuous conveyor of objects to be packed by the packaging machine.

Abstract: A stacking unit positioned between a machine that packs groups of products in single packs and a machine that wraps stacked packs using a strip of shrink-wrap material. A first horizontal conveyor is coplanar with the conveyors of the packing and wrapping machines and a pair of longitudinal closed-ring conveyors equipped with lifting devices in a constant vertical attitude are positioned either side of the first conveyor with the respective upper conveyor branch at different levels. The pair of longitudinal side conveyors equipped with the lifting devices have discs supported rotatably with their periphery at a higher level than that of the single packs being transferred onto the above-mentioned first conveyor.