Abstract: The feed hopper of a cigarette packing machine is provided with an inlet mouth comprising a fixed rectangular tubular member over which there is mounted telescopically slidable in the vertical direction a telescoping rectangular tubular member. The tray filled with cigarettes is positioned upside down, with its discharge side closed by a bottom closure plate, over the open upper end of the telescoping tubular member. The full tray is then lowered, together with the telescoping member, until the bottom closure plate reaches the level of the cigarettes already contained in the hopper. At this point, a level sensing device gives a control signal for the side shifting, and consequent opening, of the discharge side of the tray. After the opening of the discharge side, the tray is again raised to its starting position.

Abstract: For the electropneumatic inspection of the longitudinal and/or transversal permeability of the ventilated cigarettes, each cigarette is subjected in any order of succession to at least three of the four inspections consisting in applying a pneumatic pressure alternatively to each of the two cigarette ends, while keeping the opposite end open and subsequently closed. Each of these inspections determines the pneumatic resistance met at the respective cigarette inlet and the values of these resistances are converted into electric signals and used for determining the longitudinal and/or transversal permeability of the cigarette. For this purpose use is made of four-terminal network theory, by considering that the cigarette pneumatic resistance can be regarded as composed of an equivalent transversal resistance, derived from two equivalent longitudinal resistances in series with each other.

Abstract: A method and device for the electropneumatic testing of the air permeability of filter plugs for filter cigarettes. At one end of the filter plug there is applied a pneumatic pressure, the other end of the filter cigarette being connected, through a bore with the atmosphere. The pneumatic pressure applied at the inlet end of the cigarette plug is transformed into an electric test signal, and the signal is compared with an upper alarm threshold and with a higher upper reject threshold respectively, as well as with a lower alarm threshold and an inferior lower reject threshold. The test signal emitted upon reaching of the upper or lower alarm threshold initiates the operation of alarm indicators and/or sends a signal for the control of the filter plug producing machine, so as to modify the air permeability of the filter plugs. Upon reaching the upper or lower reject threshold, it causes rejection of the defective filter plugs.

Abstract: The feed hopper of a cigarette packing machine is provided with an inlet mouth comprising a fixed rectangular tubular member over which there is mounted telescopically slidable in the vertical direction a telescoping rectangular tubular member. The tray filled with cigarettes is positioned upside down, with its discharge side closed by a bottom closure plate, over the open upper end of the telescoping tubular member. The full tray is then lowered, together with the telescoping member, until the bottom closure plate reaches the level of the cigarettes already contained in the hopper. At this point, a level sensing device gives a control signal for the side shifting, and consequent opening, of the discharge side of the tray. After the opening of the discharge side, the tray is again raised to its starting position.

Abstract: Apparatus for the formation of cigarette groups consisting of three superposed parallel rows of cigarettes comprising three row-forming stations which receive the cigarettes from passageways connected to a feeding hopper. Associated with each row-forming station there is an intermediate transfer drum which presents a plurality of transfer pockets adapted to receive the rows of cigarettes from the row-forming stations. The cigarettes are then transferred from the pockets of the transfer drums into the receiving pockets of a receiving drum. Each transfer drum supplies to the receiving pockets of the receiving drum a definite row of cigarettes, so that at the end of an operating cycle, the receiving pockets will be filled with three superposed rows of cigarettes. From the receiving pockets, the groups of cigarettes are transferred to a compressor drum, associated with a cigarette packing machine. The transfer drums, the receiving drum and the compressor drum are rotated stepwise in synchronism.

Abstract: A device for the formation of groups of cigarettes of at least one row of cigarettes arranged parallel side-by-side which comprises a feeding hopper subdivided by partition walls into a plurality of adjacent passageways which open into a collecting chamber delimited by a bottom plate and by side pushers. The partition wall located in the middle zone of the row of cigarettes, extends down to the bottom plate and engages by its terminal portion a groove provided in the said bottom plate. In this manner, the cigarette row being formed is divided into two row portions.

Abstract: The receiving pocket of a cigarette group forming apparatus consists of an open-ended tubular member provided at its interior with two partitions defining three pocket sections, one for each row of cigarettes forming the cigarette group. The partitions extend at the interior of the receiving pocket, from the introduction or inlet end towards the outlet end, for a fraction of the length on the receiving pocket, usually for 1/3 of its length. The partitions become thinner in the direction of the outlet end, and they are also converging in the said direction. Also the inner upper and lower side walls of the receiving pocket converge in the direction of the outlet end.

Abstract: The device for feeding filter plugs to a demand drum comprises, in combination, a gravity-feed hopper containing a supply of multiple length filter rods, the hopper being closed, in correspondence of its bottom end, by a rotating fluted drum wherein each flute of the drum is capable of housing a filter rod. The filter rods, thus removed from the hopper, are cut into three filter plugs, which are delivered, axially aligned, onto a horizontal conveyor belt subdivided into three tracks. As a continuation of the conveyor belt there is provided a horizontal fixed sliding surface onto which the articles slide in three rows, each leading article of the three rows being pushed by the subsequent ones, until the leading article reaches an abutment member, where it is firmly positioned. Also the sliding surface is subdivided into three tracks.

Abstract: A multi-color traffic signal in particular for railway line signalling installations, presents for each color a light source comprising a lamp, a collecting optical unit and a fixed chromatic filter. The light sources are connected by means of an optical fiber guide with an irradiating window surface constituting the output optics of the signal. The collecting optical unit comprises, arranged along a same optical axis and at opposite sides of the respective lamp, a curved focalized mirror and a spherical-elliptical lens, arranged so as to focalize the light flux of said lamp on the corresponding input of said optical fiber guide.

Abstract: The device for the high speed feeding of cigarette filter rods from a magazine, through a vertical chute, to a rotary pick-up drum arranged at the bottom end of the vertical chute, comprises an endless suction belt which defines one side wall of the vertical chute and an adjoining portion of the bottom wall of the magazine. In this manner, the filter rods are positively pushed downwardly through the chute.

Abstract: A reservoir for rod-like articles such as filter plugs comprises a lower hopper section for the curing of the filter plugs, an overlying upper buffer section in which the freshly produced filter plugs accumulate up to a predetermined maximum level, and elevator belts for feeding the freshly produced filter plugs into the reservoir in a zone which is located intermediately between the lower curing hopper and the upper buffer section. A substantially horizontal cover plate is movable, at the interior of the buffer section of the reservoir, in response to the variations of the level of the filter plugs in the buffer section. Suitable limit switches are operatively associated with the movable cover plate, and control the operation of the filter making machine and the delivery apparatus which receives the filter plugs from the bottom of the lower hopper section and conveys same to further processing.

Abstract: A cigarette packing machine of the type where a hollow packet or wrapper presenting an open head side and a closed bottom side is formed around a tubular mandrel or arbor, and a pushing plunger is provided for ejecting a group of cigarettes previously inserted at the interior of said arbor in the direction of the closed bottom side of the wrapper, further comprises a slip-off device for slipping the hollow wrapper off the arbor concurrently with the displacement of the cigarette group promoted by the pushing plunger. The slip-off device consists of a rotating friction roller arranged towards and away from said arbor, so as to cause the engagement of its peripheral friction surface with the wrapper formed on the arbor.

Abstract: The device for automatically replacing defective cigarette packets discarded from a feeding line on which the packets advance in a single row comprises a pair of gravity-feed reserve hoppers, containing each a stack of reserve packets, and a transferring drum, operatively interposed between the said reserve hoppers and the feeding line. The drum is driven in step-by-step rotation in relation to the absence, signalled by suitable sensing and controlling devices, of a discarded defective packet. Upon each step rotation of the transferring drum, a cigarette packet is taken by the drum alternately from one of the said reserve hoppers, and it is progressively transferred onto the feeding line, to take the place of the previously discarded packet.

Abstract: The method for the electropneumatical testing of the composite wrapper of filter cirgarettes by applying a controlled-flow gas pressure to a cigarette end, comprises a first testing in order to determine the gas permeability of the cigarette along its longitudinal direction, i.e.

Abstract: The device for the removal of rod-like articles from a hopper in which a bulk supply of articles is provided and a rotating fluted drum is arranged to form the bottom wall of the hopper so that the articles are removed from the hopper by being picked by the flutes of the drum, presents the feature that each flute of the rotating drum has a depth so as to be capable of housing at least two superposed articles. The flutes filled with the articles come out of the hopper zone and a stripper takes out from each flute just one article, while the other article, if two of them were present in the flute, is again inserted in the operational cycle of the flute.

Abstract: The stacking apparatus comprises a vertically movable stacking plunger which receives laterally the packets and feeds them, the one after the other, to an overlying vertical magazine, so as to build a pile of superposed packets which is supported by a lower packet-support arranged in correspondence of the bottom end of the magazine, and comprises also a transferring plunger movable to-and-fro in horizontal direction through the said vertical magazine. The transferring plunger presents a pusher head which extends for a height of "N" packets above the lower packet-support, while an upper packet-support is provided arranged at the height of "N-1" packets above the lower packet-support. At each stack-forming stroke, the transferring plunger pushes sidewise out of the vertical magazine a pile of "N" packets, consisting of "N-1" packets located in the magazine between the lower and the upper packet-support, plus one packet from the packet reserve resting over the upper packet-support.

Abstract: The device for transferring and combining cigarette packs coming out from two packers operating in parallel, in order to obtain a single feeding line for a wrapping machine, comprises two parallel conveyors which receive the packs from the cigarette packers, and a transversal conveyor which receives the packs from both mentioned parallel conveyors and feeds them to the wrapping machine. In correspondence of the discharge end of each parallel conveyor there is arranged a revolving transfer wheel which transfers the packs from the discharge end of the parallel conveyor to the underlying transversal conveyor, through an arcuate transfer channel. The two transfer wheels are driven in such a manner that each pack deposited by the second transfer wheel, i.e.

Abstract: In a cigarette making machine, a trimming device for the formation of a continuous tobacco braid which presents alternatively consecutive points having a differentiated tobacco density, comprises a pair of coplanar and tangent counterrotating disks. Each disk is provided with at least a pair of notches and each notch presents a height, with respect to the tobacco braid, which is different from the height of the immediately consecutive notch on the same disk. A trimming paddle wheel is arranged to cooperate with the two disks so as to trim from the braid the excess of tobacco projecting between the two discs at their point of tangency. The paddle wheel presents at least two sectors in which the radial length of the paddles is reduced correspondingly to the height of the notches. The paddles of the trimming paddle wheel are arranged inclined with respect to the longitudinal rotational axis of the paddle wheel itself.

Abstract: A ticket-issuing system comprising an alphabetical keyboard which permits, through a suitable circuit arrangement, introduction into the data processing section of the system the name of a station of destination by omitting from the station name one or more letters. Instead, each group of omitted letters is represented by depressing a key which indicates such omission. After such keying operation, there will appear on the video display of the system either the name of the desired destination, or a list of names of destinations which satisfy the introduced request. The destinations appearing on the video display are accompanied by a code number which permits the operator to definitively key the destination into the machine for the issuance of the ticket. The ticket-issuing machine further comprises an immediate selection keyboard, presenting a plurality of keys for the immediate selection of a number of destinations which are the most frequently requested from the station at which the system is located.

Abstract: In a cigarette packing machine a pusher device for the ejection of cigarette groups formed in a composition chamber from the said composition chamber into a receiving pocket comprises a first continuous endless conveyor provided with pushers mounted thereon, said pushers sequentially engaging the said composition chamber in the direction of the axis of the cigarettes and thus ejecting from the said chamber the formed cigarette group. Each pusher is carried by a supporting rod which is telescopically slidable in a tubular carrier element rotatably mounted on said first conveyor and the telescopically slidable supporting rod is connected through a crank linkage to a second endless conveyor parallel to the said first conveyor, while the tubular carrier element is mounted on a pin rotatable on a support provided on the first conveyor and is connected through another crank linkage a third endless conveyor parallel to the first conveyor.