DEVICE FOR CONVEYING ROD-SHAPED OBJECTS SUCH AS CIGARETTES

• US 3,854,567 A
• Filed: 12/20/1971
• Issued: 12/17/1974
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/1970
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Henri Anfossi, Raymond Poupin
• Original Assignee: Henri Anfossi, Raymond Poupin
• Inventors: Poupin, Raymond, Anfossi, Henri
• Primary Examiner(s): Blunk, Evon C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Valenza, Joseph E.
• Application Number:
  US05/210,029
• Time in Patent Office: 1,093 Days
• Field of Search: 198/102,2C,203,21,22,34,165,2R 271/74
• US Class Current: 198/382
• CPC Class Codes: A24C 5/35 Adaptations of conveying apparatus for transporting cigarettes from making machine to packaging machine
• CPC Class Codes: B65G 47/082 grouping articles in rows

Abstract

In a device for conveying substantially cylindrical rod-shaped objects, such as cigarettes, of the type comprising at least one upstream smooth conveyor unit on which the objects are fed crosswise with respect to their longitudinal axis, and a smooth and perforated downstream conveyor unit, and suction means associated with said downstream conveyor unit so as to exert on the objects which it drives, a force pressing them against it, said downstream unit having a path such that an object driven by the upstream unit is, in a certain zone, both attracted against said downstream unit and subjected to an antagonistic force which draws it away from said downstream unit, means for coupling at the latest in said zone in which said antagonistic force acts, groups of a number of objects such as to provide for the feeding by said downstream unit of said groups of objects thus constituted.

Claims

1. A device for conveying and grouping substantially rod-shaped articles comprising first, upstream, smooth conveyor means for carrying a single layer of said rod-shaped articles and second, downstream, smooth conveyor means, said second conveyor means having a perforated conveying surface and associated suction means operable to urge said rod-shaped articles into contact with the conveying surface of said second conveyor means, said first and second conveyor means being disposed, relative to one another, so as to define a transferral zone in which rod-shaped articles disposed cross-wise on the conveying surface of said first conveyor means are transferred to the conveying surface of said second conveyor means by the urging of said suction means, and braking means downstream of said transferral zone comprising a source of air current so disposed as to deliver said air current in opposition to the direction of passage of said rodshaped articles exiting from said transferral zone, said braking means being operable to delay the passage of single, ungrouped rod-shaped articles on said second conveyor means downstream from said transferral zone until parallel to and contiguously grouped with at least one other rod-shaped article and to permit a plurality of such parallel and contiguously grouped rod-shaped articles to be conveyed by said second conveyor means.