Abstract: A can star drive for a fish-canning machine in which a turret 11 and can star 75 are separately driven, with the can star 75 being rotated through its 120.degree. advance in each cycle during half again as much time as it takes for the turret 11 to advance through its 120.degree. advance. The slower rate of rotation of the can star 75 reduces the exit velocity of the filled cans as they are discharged from the machine to avoid ejection of fish from filled cans. In addition, the can star 75 rotates through its 120.degree. continuously in a one-step advance, rather than through a two-step advance with an intermediate stop as in prior machines.

Abstract: The present invention provides a novel automatic tray loading mechanism and method for receiving and delivering product articles into individualized compartments of a tray using a loading mechanism having a screw member with spiral banding which when rotated urges the product articles across a shelf and into a tray which is subsequently carried away from the loading mechanism.

Abstract: A packaging and conveying system for packaging a bundle of cigarettes or other smoking articles into a pre-formed pack. The system includes conveying means for conveying closed empty packs to a turret wheel having a plurality of slots wherein each slot is sized to receive an empty closed pack. Means are provided to remove the packs from the turret wheel at preselected locations in alignment with means to open the pack. The open packs are then conveyed to a bundle inserting station wherein a bundle of cigarettes are inserted into the packs. From the bundle inserting station, the packs are conveyed to a package closure means and then conveyed away to storage or further packing for shipment.

Abstract: The apparatus is fitted with a transfer turntable (1) suitable for conveying dishes in the open state from a station for dispensing open dishes to a filling station, and then from the filling station to a station for receiving filled dishes. The turntable comprises a top plate (10) whose openings retain the lids of the dishes and a bottom plate (11) whose openings receive the bottoms of the dishes, said bottoms resting constantly against a fixed refrigerated sole plate (55) while they are being transferred. The turntable (1) is driven by means of a drive disk (6) placed beneath the sole plate (55) and magnetically coupled to the turntable by means of two series of facing magnets (61-12). The apparatus is suitable for constituting laboratory equipment.

Abstract: The apparatus has, at a first level (N1), a turntable (4) mounted to rotate about a substantially vertical axis (5) and including receptacles (9) distributed over its periphery to receive boxes (2) during passage past a first work station, and for moving them incrementally, in the course of the rotation of the turntable, to various successive work stations, and, at a level (N3) different from the first, a conveyor (A) for moving the article to a station, vertically below a box (2) in the open state, a displacement device (169) being further provided to introduce the article (1) into the box (2) by a substantially vertical motion, and, at an intermediate level (N2) located between the level (N1) of the boxes and the level (N3) at which the articles are supplied, a stack of precut sheets (17) of corrugated cardboard (3) is provided and a suction device for grasping the sheets (17) one at a time for introducing them into a shaper device (18) provided at the intermediate level (N2), in correspondence with each re

Abstract: A stacking apparatus for forming groups of face-to-face contacting flat items comprises a supply conveyor for advancing a column of serially arranged, flat-lying items; a stack-forming unit situated in a charging station and arranged for sequentially receiving the items from the supply conveyor; a plurality of stacking containers for acommodating a stack of the items; an arrangement for positioning an empty stacking container in the charging station; a stop arranged in the charging station for arresting each item in the stack-forming unit upon delivery by the supply conveyor; an intermittent drive for causing the stack-forming unit to cyclically deposit an item in the stacking container to form an article stack therein; and a sensor which generates a signal indicating a presence of an item to be deposited by the stack-forming unit and which is situated upstream of the stack-forming unit. The signal is applied to the intermittent drive for actuating the same.

Abstract: The performance of packaging machines for the production of hinge-lid cigarette packs is limited by complex folding operations. In particular, these packs have hitherto been conveyed through the packaging machine by intermittently moved conveying members (folding turrets), the necessary folding steps thereby being carried out. In order to increase the performance of a packaging machine of this type, folding turrets (35, 36) are driven continuously. During the continuous movement of folding turrets 35, 36, the necessary folding of pack blanks (12) are made, especially by means of co-rotating folding members assigned respectively to a pocket (47, 74) of the folding turrets. During the continuous run, partially finished hinge-lid packs (10) are transferred from one folding turret (35) to the following folding turret (36) which is designed in a similar way to the first folding turret (35) and which completes the folding of the pack blanks (12).

Abstract: An apparatus is disclosed for making bags or sacks from a continuous tubular film of thermoplastic material. The continuous tubular film is moved intermittently in a downward direction to a welding device, a cutter below the welding device, and a turret-like rotary conveyor below the cutter. A bag length is received by grippers on the rotary conveyor before it is welded and cut. When thus received the bag length is welded and cut, and the conveyor indexed by one step to present succeeding grippers to the tube. The tube is then advanced another bag length so that the succeeding bag is received in the succeeding pair of grippers. The process is repeated with succeeding bags. The bags on the conveyor are successively delivered to a transfer station where the grippers are opened to release the bags.

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 system for packaging articles within containers, each container being generally egg shaped and having an open end for receiving the articles and having a generally planar closure applied to the open end thereof to confine the articles therein. The system includes a multi-station intermittently rotatable generally circular turret or carousel carrier disk having a plurality of radial slots, each fixedly mounting a canister for receiving and temporarily confining articles therein fed into the top thereof during partial rotation or indexing of said turret or carousel and for receiving an open container fed into the bottom during the remainder of the rotation thereof. These canisters are open at both ends for systematically receiving the articles and containers in timed relation. Highly polished reciprocatable fingers are selectively positioned beneath the canisters when such are located at prescribed locations to confine the articles therein.

Abstract: An apparatus for handling articles has a rotatable table. A pivotable tray support is attached to the rotatable table. The tray support has a slab-like member for entering rear portions of trays to provide resilient support for the trays. The resilient supporting of the trays avoids damage to articles being loaded in the trays. The tray support has a lower surface for supporting the trays. The trays are unloaded by pivoting the tray support.

Abstract: A machine for making fuel elements/aerosol generating cartridges useful for smoking articles, the machine providing for receiving a random supply of tubular, open-end containers, orienting the containers to position them for filling, filling the containers with a predetermined amount of aerosol generating material, and capping the open ends by inserting fuel elements therein.

Abstract: The apparatus for introducing blister-type products and the like into boxes, comprises a carousel rotatable about a horizontal axis and composed of box retention means, angularly distributed around the axis and a product distribution drum. On the product distribution drum a plurality of containers adapted for containing the products, and a corresponding plurality of pushers, are mounted slideable in a direction extending parallel to the axis and aligned with the box retention means. Fixed annular-cams are provided for controlling the sliding of the containers and the pushers so as to perform in succession the approach of each container to a related box and the introduction of the pusher into the container so as to push the products into the box.

Abstract: A portable apparatus for handling cheese, including a base and a turntable mounted on the base. The turntable has cutout recesses in the periphery thereof for moving molds in a circular locus. A platform is provided on the base for supporting the molds as they are being moved in a circular locus. The base includes stations. A filling and weighing station is provided on the base whereby curd is filled into the molds and weighed to a predetermined level. A compacting station is also provided on the base whereby the curd in the molds will be pressed to remove the air therefrom and packs the cheese within the molds. The recesses and the turntable are in registry with the stations on the base.

Abstract: Apparatus for making cartons with arrays of cigarette packs therein has a conveyor which transports the arrays to a transfer station and a feeding unit which delivers successive blanks to the transfer station so that a freshly delivered blank is adjacent to one side of the foremost array on the conveyor. A tubular deforming member is pivotable about a horizontal axis between a first position in which an inlet of its chamber is adjacent to the transfer station so that a plunger can be caused to transfer the foremost array into the deforming member with simultaneous partial draping of the adjacent blank around the transferred array, and a second position in which the inlet is located at a level below an outlet of the deforming member. A pusher is thereupon caused to enter the deforming member by way of the inlet and to move the array and the deformed blank upwardly into a receiving unit with attendant further deformation of the blank.

Abstract: A packaging machine has, for wrapping flat, rectangular items in a wrapper sheet, a folding, sealing and conveying apparatus including an intermittently driven turntable, a plurality of pocket assemblies on the turntable, a charging station for radially introducing an article with a wrapper sheet in between first and second walls of a pocket assembly dwelling in the charging station, a sealing station for providing a longitudinal fin seal on previously superposed flaps of the wrapper sheet, and a discharge station for radially ejecting the article from the pocket assembly dwelling in the discharge station. There is further provided an extension affixed to the first wall of each pocket assembly at an angle to the first wall. Each extension has a support face cooperating with the sealing shoe of the sealing station as a countersupport. The apparatus also has a device for rotating each pocket assembly approximately 180.degree.

Abstract: A vacuum packing apparatus for vacuum packing objects into flexible bags. The apparatus has first and second gears rotatable around a pair of spaced apart vertical axes and an endless chain which is engaged with the gears. The first gear has a plurality of chambers spaced at intervals from one another, and the chain carries a plurality of lids for hermetically sealing the chambers. Each lid includes a pair of clippers for hanging the bags in suspension with the bag openings oriented upwardly. A bag feed unit feeds bags to the clippers and a hopper unit feeds objects into the bags while the bags are supported in suspension by the clippers. Each bag, while being supported in suspension by a pair of clippers on a lid, is positioned into a chamber by the positioning of the lid over the chamber. After a vacuum is formed in the chamber, and hence in each bag, the bags are sealed to provide a vacuum packed bag.

Abstract: There is disclosed a packaging assembly for inserting a plurality of small diameter tubes into a packaging container wherein the assembly is comprised of a container rotor, a tube supply rotor and an injection rotor mounted in keyed relationship on a shaft driven by a motor and wherein the container rotor includes a channel for receiving the packaging container, the supply rotor includes a channel for receiving a preselect quantity of the small diameter tubes and wherein the injection rotor includes a channel for receiving in reciprocating relationship a plurality of rod member and wherein said channels of the rotors are in co-axial alignment with one another whereby a reciprocating movement of the rod member inserts the plurality of small diameter tubes into the packaging container.

Abstract: An apparatus for introducing tape cassettes or the like together with supplements into hinged boxes including a turret which is arranged to rotate step-by-step about a horizontal axis and containing holding means for the hinged boxes. The hinged boxes are fed from below into one of the holding means in a hinged box insertion station which lies essentially vertically below the axis of rotation of the turret. In a cassette and supplement insertion station lying essentially horizontally in the plane of the axis of rotation of the turret, tape cassettes and supplements are supplied and inserted into an at least partially opened hinged box. An ejection station is positioned essentially horizontally in the plane of axis of rotation of the turret and is offset by approximately 180.degree. relative to the cassette and supplement insertion station. The holding means comprise two pivotal flaps which can be selectively brought into different positions in the various stations.

Abstract: Apparatus for packaging cigarettes, the apparatus comprising means for applying a strip of packaging material about a group of the articles to form a tube and folding and gluing the ends of the wrapper to define the package is provided with a plural stage drying apparatus which permits a long glue drying operation without adversely effecting the speed of operation of the packaging apparatus. The drying apparatus includes a pair of adjacent, synchronously rotated, drums which have receiving cells for the packages. The packages are transferred, typically in pairs, into individual cells of a first drum and are subsequently simultaneously transferred from cells in the first drum into cells of the second drum.

Abstract: There is illustrated and described a machine for setting up corrugated box blanks having four side panels folded double and sealed along their otherwise adjacent free edges and having top and bottom end flaps extending from each end of each side panel.

Abstract: A wrapping device in which two rotating drums (18, 20) of identical circumferential velocities are arranged symmetrically and one of the rotating drums (18) is provided around its circumference with a number of recesses (36) adapted to receive the sheet articles from an open bottom (32) of the hopper (16) in which a number of the sheet articles are stored in superposition whereas the opposite rotating drum (20) is provided around its circumference with a number of receivers (78) which first hold the wrapping paper and then catch the sheet article transmitted from the rotating drum (18), so that the wrapping operation is continuously performed by the synchronous rotation of the wrapping drums (18, 20) with folding of the wrapping paper.

Abstract: Centrifugal feeders, particularly a method of transporting singulated parts from the periphery of a centrifugal feeder. The method includes vertically orienting while supporting the parts in nests or notches defined at the periphery of the feeder, advancing the parts away from said supporting and dropping the parts into individual containers or pucks which are transported tangentially away from the centrifugal feeder. The method is characterized by its capability of high speed singulation of parts into any desired matrix.

Abstract: A box packing machine and process for packing a shipping box such as a carton with a group of containers such as bottles and cans smoothly without interference between separators and containers. Separators are placed at predetermined positions inside an intermediate box, and a group of containers transported in a matrix form with certain raws and columns and lying on a conveyor are loaded into the intermediate box. Then the containers and separators thus loaded in the intermediate box are transferred into a shipping box such as a carton as a unit and without changing their relative positional relationship. Containers are originally transported upright and in a single line, and they are laid down onto another conveyor every predetermined number whereby containers being laid down are supported on both sides.

Abstract: A semi-automatic bag filling and weighing machine is disclosed including a rotatable indexing table supporting a bag at four spaced locations around the table, a conveyor device for supplying articles to be weighed and filled into the bags, a weighing and filling station to which the bags are moved by the indexing table, a weighing and sensing device for actuating power cylinders operating in conjunction with the filling station, the indexing table and other control devices to move the indexing table so as to replace a filled bag with an empty bag at the filling station. Quick release bag clamping devices are also provided.

Abstract: An apparatus incorporating a microprocessor control is provided for automatically loading nuclear fuel pellets into fuel rods commonly used in nuclear reactor cores. The apparatus comprises a split "V" trough for assembling segments of fuel pellets in rows and a shuttle to receive the fuel pellets from the split "V" trough when the two sides of the split "V" trough are opened. The pellets are weighed while in the shuttle, and the shuttle then moves the pellets into alignment with a fuel rod. A guide bushing is provided to assist the transfer of the pellets into the fuel rod. A rod carousel which holds a plurality of fuel rods presents the proper rod to the guide bushing at the appropriate stage in the loading sequence. The bushing advances to engage the fuel rod, and the shuttle advances to engage the guide bushing. The pellets are then loaded into the fuel rod by a motor operated push rod.

Abstract: A machine for placing stored objects on grill stand is disclosed which has a plate carrying the grills to be filled and which successively moves them under a plurality of distributing stations. The distributing stations are continuously fed pins from bulk pin bins, and have pin transfer carriages to transfer pins between the distributing stations and grills. Individual push rod sets cooperate with the transfer carriages to make the pins go from the transfer carriages into the grills. Suitable mechanisms control the longitudinal and crosswise movement of the transfer carriages above the grills so that at each loading station, a row of the grill is filled, preferably in two passes, the pins of the row being distributed successively in alternating pockets.

Abstract: Sausages or other articles having initial lengths several times longer than their final, packaged lengths are automatically severed to their proper dimensions, accumulated into multisausage clusters and then inserted into awaiting containers, all automatically. Each long initial length of material is initially severed into separate lengths, then gathered into side-by-side relationship with other severed lengths, then severed a second time into the final length. The final lengths are then arranged into generally cylindrically configured clusters for axial packing into the awaiting containers. Special handling techniques are used throughout the process so as to render the system fully automated without damaging the materials or failing to pack the prescribed number of materials into each container.

Abstract: Device for inserting tape cassette or the like and enclosures particularly into hinged boxes, having devices for feeding the boxes, for opening the boxes, for feeding and inserting the cassettes and enclosures into the open boxes and for closing and pushing out the filled boxes and having a revolving head with holding devices for the boxes. The holding devices for the boxes are arranged at the periphery of the horizontally revolving head and the holding devices hold the boxes tangentially to the periphery of the revolving head. The axis of rotation extends horizontally from the cover and bottom of the boxes and is directed tangentially to the periphery of the revolving head. The holding devices have non-stationary devices rotating together with the revolving head for opening and closing the boxes during the rotation of the revolving head.

Abstract: A new packaging method and apparatus for positively nesting at least one workpiece in a base member comprised of permanently deformable material such as cellular urethane foam. The base member is electrostatically neutralized, cleaned and then moved onto a rotating table-like arrangement defining a circular work path and which is adapted to be selectively indexed between a plurality of individual work stations. Disposed above the work path and selectively movable toward and away therefrom is a frame member. This frame member advantageously includes individual work performing means at spaced intervals therearound adapted to be placed in operative association with selected ones of the work stations in order to achieve the desired workpiece nesting in the base member. These work performing means may facilitate various aligning, performing, compression nesting and ejection operations in any sequence which may be desired and/or necessary to accommodate different workpiece types and styles.

Abstract: A system for packaging articles within containers, each including a lower article receiving portion, wherein a plurality of container receivers are continuously rotated in an endless path and displaced radially of their axis of rotation to various work zones. Each of the receivers is provided with a loading tube and a ram for positioning an article within a container lower receiving portion, and dispensing means are provided for rotating and accurately positioning the container lower portion within the receiver, and for positioning an upper lid or cap portion with respect to the lower container portion.

Abstract: In the overall system, vertically disposed, primary bags are filled with articles to a predetermined weight and conveyor means conduct the filled primary bags to a discharge point where a predetermined number of said filled bags are discharged at a discharge point and fall into an upright master bag, after which the filled master bag is carried away and closed, and an empty bag is positioned to receive primary bags of said predetermined number from said conveyor means.

Abstract: Apparatus for automatically covering an item, such as a garment on a hanger, with a bag closed at the top and sides, and open at the bottom. The bagging material is supplied from a continuous roll in tubular form and is automatically fed from the roll, pulled over the item, cut to the proper length for the item to be covered, and heat sealed along the top edge. Unique means are provided for holding, cutting and sealing the bagging material, preferably a thermosensitive plastic, as well as for re-opening the end after cutting to begin a new cycle. Three stations for holding items to be covered, i.e., loading, bagging and discharge stations, are positioned on a rotating base and automatically indexed through each position in a continuous manner as the operations are performed.

Abstract: Automatic Production, filling, and closing of bags, especially plastic guted bags. The bag is produced at a first station of the apparatus for carrying out the invention, from a flat tube. The bag is then successively moved to a second station where it is filled, a third station where it is sealed or closed, and a fourth station at which it is transferred from the machine to a delevery point which may be outfitted with a conveyor for transferring the filled and closed bag to a storage area.