Abstract: A conveying unit for feeding preshaped pieces of cardboard to a machine for packaging cigarettes into hinged lid packets, the unit including a first and a second conveyor arranged substantially at right angles to one another and along each of which said pieces are advanced in contact with a support surface, the second of said support surfaces being arranged at a higher level than the first, and a transfer mechanism being provided to raise said pieces one by one from said first surface, support each raised piece in said raised position, and then push the same on to said second surface.

Abstract: A conveyor, particularly for feeding preshaped pieces of cardboard to a machine for packaging cigarettes into hinged lid packets, and in which a guide is provided to control the vertical position of said pieces when they fall from the bottom of an upper vessel on to said conveyor under the action of an extractor, said guide being movable to and from a working position in which the guide interferes with the falling path of said pieces.

Abstract: An improved transfer device for transferring soft cake-shaped products, and soap cakes in particular, from one conveyor to another conveyor, which device comprises a sliding member reciprocatingly moved along a horizontal guide parallel to said one conveyor, and an oscillating arm associated to said sliding member to cause a vertical and reciprocating movement of sucker means carried by said sliding member. A locking device is provided for locking said oscillating arm in its upwardly directed position when sensing means, positioned near the drawing area of said one conveyor, detects an irregular sequence of products. An intercepting bar means, positioned at the end of said one conveyor and near said drawing area, is cyclically moved from an intercepting to a disengaging position, and viceversa, to intercept the irregularly supplied products and to hold them in the sucker means drawing area so as to be correctly sucked by said sucker means during the next machine cycle.

Abstract: In the hinged-lid type cigarette packets, the upper flap protruding from the front wide side of the inner wrapper should, for convenience in the use, be folded over the upper flap protruding from the rear wide side of the same inner wrapper. In some of the conventional soft type packeting machines the folding disposition of the upper flaps is exactly opposite to the one above described, and the present invention provides for a device which allows the use, in a hinged-lid type packeting machine, of a rotating wrapping head normally used in the soft type packeting machine, since said device reverses the folding disposition of the upper flaps.

Abstract: The storage unit, to be used in conjunction with direct-feed plants for manufacturing cigarette packets, comprises a duct inclined to the vertical for feeding the cigarettes to the hopper of the packeting machine and a plurality of chambers extending perpendicularly to said duct, each having an end wall movable to change the volume of the related chamber. Drives are connected to each movable wall and are controlled by means responsive to the cigarette pressure sensed inside the inclined duct.

Abstract: A device for cutting a roll of foil into lengths in a packet cigarette packer, comprises one or more couples of continuous feed wheels for the foil roll along and between fixed guides and a couple of cutting blades placed opposite each other below the feed wheels of which one at least possesses continuous rotatory movement round an axis parallel to the same feed wheels. A pad of absorbent material in cylindrical form supported freely turning round its own axis is set parallel to the axis of rotation of the turning blade in position such that during its rotatory movement the turning blade comes into contact with the cylindrical pad of absorbent material pre-soaked in vaseline oil, a lubricant.

Abstract: A device to check and discard lengths of wrapping paper (foil) intended to form the wrapper on packets of cigarettes in a very high speed packet cigarette packer; comprises at least one turning wheel in continuous motion on an axis parallel to the vertical feed plane for the lengths of wrapping paper and disposed opposite the front side of the stop check for the single lengths. Apparatus having idlers is placed, in respect to the feed plane, on the opposite side of the turning wheel in continuous motion mounted on an axis parallel to the axis of the wheel and spaced therefrom. An electromagnetic command controls the check for missing or faulty bundles of cigarettes.

Abstract: The device comprises at least one toothed roller supported by a rocking lever, and adapted to contact the outer edges of the side flaps of the blanks. Each toothed roller is mounted on a pin by a conventional free wheel device so as to exert a sliding friction on the outer edges of the flaps only during a downwardly directed movement thereof, thereby bending the flaps in a direction opposite to the one naturally assumed by them due to the composite conformation of the stack of blanks.

Abstract: The apparatus comprises a pair of pushers synchronously moved at a frequency equal to 1/n of the frequency of pile forming means. The first pusher feeds individual piles into a rejecting and replenishment device, and the second pusher removes individual piles from the same rejecting and replenishment device, and feeds them to an exiting channel wherein individual groups of piles are formed and delivered to the parcelling or cartoning machine.

Abstract: Switching device for switching a flow of cigarettes, transversely aligned with respect to the flow in plants for directly feeding individual cigarettes from and to operating machines. The plant has a compensating device for compensating output unbalances between manufacturing and packeting machines. A conveyor withdraws the cigarettes from the manufacturing machines. The conveyor has a branch leading to the grouping hopper of a packeting machine, and another branch leading to the compensating device. The switching device comprises two arms movably supported at the branching-out zone of the conveyor. The end portions of the arms are shaped so as to define guide surfaces which are parts of corresponding switching paths, and are respectively located on both sides of the cigarette flow.

Abstract: A device for guiding and holding cigarette batches in two seven-cigarette layers and an upper six-cigarette layer. The device has two opposite movable walls each having an upper end projecting toward the batch and at the level of the six-cigarette layer.

Abstract: A device to put the inner foil wrapper on soft packets in a very high speed cigarette packer comprises a head or wheel turning at intervals fitted with a number of radiating compartments capable of taking at most one bundle of cigarettes for packeting and a plurality of folding mechanisms including a folder with alternating movement.The wall of each compartment above the folder with alternating movement in the sense of rotation of the turning head or wheel comprises a thin plate. The folder with alternating movement carries a second thin plate towards the turning head or wheel so as to rebut during its forward movement the after end of the length of foil onto the surface of the former plate external to the corresponding compartment.

Abstract: A device for re-orienting and redistributing hinge-lid packets of cigarettes for application of sealing strips or revenue stamps to the hinge-lids. A first conveyor unit receives the packets, disposed on edge and contacting one another with their wide sides, and having their hinge-lid portions facing away from one side of the conveyor unit. The first conveyor unit moves the packets gradually to a second conveyor unit. This unit moves more rapidly than the first, to space the packets apart. It cooperates with a deflector disk and a narrow overhead belt to turn each packet so that it travels to the delivery end of the second conveyor unit, with the hinge-lid portion facing forward, toward a machine for applying a seal strip or the like.

Abstract: A system for connecting n cigarette manufacturing machines by a cigarette container feeding apparatus to the loading mechanism of the grouping hopper of a packeting machine. Each manufacturing machine has means for filling single successive containers. Empty containers are rythmically supplied and removed, and full ones removed and supplied, by stepwise moving conveyor devices, with the aid of storage conveyor devices to compensate for output unbalances between the several machines. The speed of the packeting machine is substantially equal to the sum of the operating speed in the time unit of the n manufacturing machines and the speed of each of said n machines is equal to v/n.

Abstract: A device for preparing pieces of wrapping material for use as inner wraps in hinge-lid cigarette packets. The device comprises a pair of rollers, rotating in opposite directions, which move a web of wrapping material downwards; a scoring disk rotating with one of the rollers to trace a sheet-weakening line of the web, longitudinally in the direction in which the web moves in such a way as to delimitate a part that can be subsequently detached from the web; and cutting rolls which transversely cut the web into individual sheets.

Abstract: A compensating store device for cigarettes, between cigarette manufacturing machines and machines for packeting the cigarettes, wrapping the packets and making and wrapping packs of wrapped packets. The store device comprises a cylinder intermittently rotating about a vertical axis and having vertical, radial cigarette storage compartments, circumferentially distributed. A cigarette delivery channel system at the top of this cylinder can feed cigarettes from a feeding conveyor to each successive compartment stopped below this channel; a generally similar channel system at the bottom can withdraw cigarettes. Each channel system comprises a fixed channel section communicating with consecutive storage compartments, a channel section movably mounted to selectively admit and stop a flow of cigarettes into or from the fixed section; and a solenoid for controlling the latter section.

Abstract: A compensating store device for cigarettes, between cigarette manufacturing machines and machines for packeting the cigarettes, wrapping the packets and making and wrapping packs of wrapped packets. The store device comprises a cylinder rotating about a vertical axis and having vertical, radial cigarette storage compartments, circumferentially distributed. A cigarette delivery channel at the top of this cylinder feeds cigarettes from a feeding conveyor run to the compartments, and tilts gradually so as not to loose its free and open, cigarette-feeding connection to the compartment in the rotating cylinder. Similarly, a cigarette-removing channel at the bottom of the cylinder is tiltably mounted. Between these channels, successive, horizontal rods are moved into, downwardly along, and ultimately from each compartment, with the aid of a further tilting mechanism, to provide supports for the cigarettes stored in the compartments.

Abstract: A compensating store device for cigarettes, between cigarette manufacturing machines and machines for packeting the cigarettes, wrapping the packets and making and wrapping packs of wrapped packets. The store device comprises a cylinder rotating about a vertical axis and having vertical, radial cigarette storage compartments, circumferentially distributed. A cigarette delivery channel at the top of this body feeds cigarettes to the compartments, and tilts so as not to loose its free and open, cigarette-feeding connections to the compartment in the rotating cylinder. Similarly, a cigarette-removing channel at the bottom of the cylinder is tiltably mounted. Between these channels, successive, horizontal rods, cantilevering from a support are moved into, downwardly along, and ultimately from each compartment.

Abstract: A highly safe device for reducing noise produced in gear wheel couplings in the motion transmission and distribution lines of wrapping and packeting machines operated at very high output speed. Two co-axial and opposite gears have the same number of angularly coincident teeth, one of the gears being formed of rigid metal material and the other consisting of tough and elastically yielding material.

Abstract: A device for sealing wrapping material on pieces of candy or similar products, in what is known as the "soap" style of wrapping, and for exiting the products, in their sealed wraps, from the wrapping machine. Each wrapped product is first received in a correspondingly dimensioned pocket of a horizontal conveyor disk, which intermittently conveys the product along a sequence of plates, comprising a presser plate, a first heat-welding plate, and a first cooling plate. The presser plate eliminates bulges of the sides of the product, created during the wrapping. It presses other sides of the product, with folded tabs of the wrap thereon, into the pocket. The heat-welding plate then seals portions of the wrap on a then exposed side of the product.