Abstract: Method of and device for transferring packages like bags, blister packs, etc. from a packaging machine to a further-processing mahcine, a box-packing machine for example, wherein a small portion of the packages released by the packaging machine are automatically transferred to a supply shaft by a transfer device and most of the packages are provided to the downstream further-processing machine by the transfer device, whereby the packages diverted upstream of the transfer device are replaced with packages obtained from the supply shaft by the transfer device.

Abstract: Packages include a bottom foil having spaced nests formed therein and a cover foil. At least the bottom foil is permeable to radiation so that it may be irradiated on one side with a source of radiation following a filling station during movement of the packages through a packaging machine. The intensity of the radiation allowed to pass through the bottom foil is measured by a radiation receiver having an active receiving surface which overlies the filler material and which surface is greater than the surface of the filler material facing it. The radiation through the bottom foil casts filled nests onto the receiving surface. The shadow of a nest inappropriately filled differs from a shadow of the nests appropriately filled with the filler material. An apparatus is triggered for sorting out an inappropriately filled nest by starting signals of a receiver whenever the amplitude thereof fails to reach a predetermined value.

Abstract: A reference package or packages comprised of an orderly group of properly filled compartments is moved into a testing station, where its image is picked up by a television camera. The picture signal produced by the camera is digitalized and stored in a circulating memory for repeated read-out. Thereafter, successively, a package or packages comprised of compartments to be examined, and exhibiting the same orderly arrangement as the properly filled compartments, are moved into the testing station. The picture signal produced by the camera during pick-up of the successive images is synchronously compared with reconstituted analog picture information read out from the memory. Discrepancies in the compared information result in error signals used to produce discard signals. Groups of packages, arranged in rows extending transverse and parallel to the scan lines of the camera tube, can be tested.