Abstract: A bottle-capping machine has a rotor rotatable about a substantially stationary horizontal axis and having radially oppositely outwardly directed arms each having an outer end formed as a seat adapted to hold one of the caps. A conveyor moves the bottles through a fitting station below the axis and a downwardly open magazine holding a stack of the caps in a pick-off station above the axis is vertically displaceable between a lower position with the stack engageable with the seat in the pick-off station and an upper position with the stack clear of the seat in the pick-off station. A vertically displaceable stripper element fixed to the magazine is engageable with the cap on the seat in the fitting station to strip the cap from the seat in the fitting station and apply it to the neck of a bottle in the fitting station.

Abstract: A bottling apparatus has a frame having a horizontally extending upper portion and a horizontally extending lower portion separated from the upper portion by an open space and an endless conveyor element on the frame having a horizontal lower stretch in the frame lower portion, an upper stretch above the space in the frame upper portion, and upstream and downstream upright stretches extending between and interconnecting upstream and downstream ends of the upper and lower stretches. A drive advances the element continuously in a horizontal transport direction in the lower stretch. A plurality of holders secured to the element each form a transverse row of seats adapted to fit snugly around necks of respective bottles which are loaded into the holders at the upstream end of the lower stretch with mouths of the bottles open upward into the space and the bottles hanging by their necks from the lower stretch.

Abstract: A bottling apparatus has a frame and an endless conveyor element on the frame, having a horizontal working stretch extending in a transport direction through a filling station, and carrying a plurality of holder plates each formed with a row of seats adapted to fit snugly around necks of bottles. Couplings releasably secure the holder plates to the conveyor element with the holder plates spaced in the transport direction along the working stretch and the rows extending transverse to the transport direction. A drive advances the conveyor element stepwise in the transport direction in the working stretch and arrests each of the holder plates in the filling station with the bottles in its seats aligned with the fill tubes. A plurality of stationary upright fill tubes in the filling station above the working stretch are aligned with the seats of the holder plate in the filling station. The plates are lifted in the filling station off the conveyor element to engage the fill tubes down into the respective bottles.

Abstract: An apparatus for filling containers has a frame carrying a plurality of sprockets and an endless conveyor chain on the frame having between two of the sprockets a straight treatment stretch. A succession of holders secured to the chain are each formed with a transverse row of seats adapted to hold respective containers. Respective machines carried on the frame and spaced apart along the stretch clean, fill, and cap containers in the seats. A drive connected to one of the sprockets advances the chain and moves the containers in steps in the seats past the machines. A metering wheel journaled in the frame meshes near one of the machines with the chain such that as the chain is advanced the wheel is synchronously rotated. A movable sensor element synchronously movable with the wheel can orbit on rotation of the wheel past a fixed sensor element carried on the frame to generate an output.

Abstract: A bottling apparatus has a frame and an endless conveyor element on the frame and having a horizontal lower stretch, an upper stretch above the lower stretch, and upstream and downstream corners where the element changes direction. A plurality of pairs of upstream and downstream plates are each secured to the element with the plates of each pair having confronting edges each in turn formed with a cutout. The cutouts of each pair form in the straight stretches a seat adapted to fit snugly around a neck of a bottle. The edges are spaced apart at the corners so that, at the corners, they cannot hold a bottle. A drive advances the element in a horizontal transport direction in the lower stretch and separates the plates of each pair at the upstream and downstream corners.

Abstract: The seal of a package comprising a cup containing a liquid or semiliquid substance and having a rim to which a flexible cover is sealed is checked by simultaneously monitoring the position of the cover, inwardly elastically deflecting at least one of the walls of the cup so that the disk is bulged outward only when the cup is sealed, and generating an output based on the monitored position of the disk when the disk is bulged outward. The cup is held substantially stationary while monitoring the cover-disk position and inwardly deflecting the one wall, although normally diametrically opposite side walls are simultaneously and oppositely inwardly deflected. The position of the cover disk is monitored by pressing a bumper against it resiliently and detecting movement of the bumper.

Abstract: A dispensing device for fluid products, such as dairy products, has a coaxially positioned valve cylinder inside a dispensing cylinder, both connected at their upper end to the product source. The dispensing piston is in the form of a ring piston which slides on the valve cylinder. The two pistons are fully immersed in product, and air entrainment is prevented.

Abstract: The cup filling unit includes a guided circulating feed means which carries cup receptacles positioned in rows transverse to the feed direction. The cup receptacles also follow feed paths parallel to the feed direction. An elevator is provided for feeding cup and/or cover stacks in an added cup and/or cover feed device. The carrier of the elevator engages under a cup and/or cover stack and raises it from below axially into a lower opening of a shaft of an intermediate magazine. Each lower opening is associated with an engagable or disengagable supporting base for gripping under or delivering an overlapping cup and/or cover stack. The intermediate magazine is movable and displaceable from its filling position into a discharging position. In the discharging position the lower opening of the intermediate magazine substantially coincides with the upper opening of a cup and/or cover delivery magazine positioned above the cup and/or cover delivery station.

Abstract: The cup filling unit includes a guided circulating feed means which carries cup receptacles positioned in rows transverse to the feed direction. The cup receptacles also follow feed paths parallel to the feed direction. An elevator is provided for feeding cup and/or cover stacks in an added cup and/or cover feed device. The carrier of the elevator engages under a cup and/or cover stack and raises it from below axially into a lower opening of a shaft of an intermediate magazine. Each lower opening is associated with an engagable or disengagable supporting base for gripping under or delivering an overlapping cup and/or cover stack. The intermediate magazine is movable and displaceable from its filling position into a discharging position. In the discharging position the lower opening of the intermediate magazine substantially coincides with the upper opening of a cup and/or cover delivery magazine positioned above the cup and/or cover delivery station.

Abstract: A cup and/or cover strand can be fed with the cup and/or cover feed device according to our invention, especially a cup and/or cover feed device of a cup filling unit for nutrient and palatable items such as dairy products. The cup and/or cover edges of the cup and/or cover strand are gripped and held by circumferential screw threads on substantially vertical axially parallel rotating spindle heads of a separating device and are divided into magazine suitable cup and/or cover partial stacks. The cup and/or cover partial stacks are deposited and supported on a horizontal conveyor spaced from and below the separating device. At least one vertical conveyor with downwardly moving recesses is provided on each side of the horizontal conveyor connected with the separating device and bridging the space between the separating device and the horizontal conveyor. The recesses hold the cover and/or cup edges and are provided in an axial region appropriate for the partial stack.

Abstract: An apparatus for the packaging of comestibles and other materials in individual cup-shaped containers has a cup-discharge station at the end of a conveyor at which the filled cups are removed from respective receptacles in the conveyor. Individual lifting plates below the conveyor raise the cups into an array of grippers which are relatively displaceable in two mutually perpendicular directions so that, when the array is displaced from alignment with the lifter plates, the inter-cup spacing can be reduced.

Abstract: An endless conveyor has equispaced sections provided with respective arrays of recesses designed to receive cup-shaped containers which are to be filled, covered by lids, sealed and date-stamped in respective stations past which the conveyor is intermittently advanced in steps equaling the width of a section. Each array consists of two parallel rows of recesses, transverse to the direction of conveyor motion, which are relatively staggered by half a pitch and have centerlines spaced apart by less than that pitch whereby the lids of containers seated in adjoining recesses overlap one another in both the longitudinal and the transverse direction. Each operating station coacts during each cycle with a leading and a trailing row of recesses, but not necessarily of the same array; thus, a dispensing station and a printing station consist each of two synchronized units respectively serving one row of an upstream section and a nonadjoining row of a downstream section.