Method and apparatus for forming continuous cigarette rods
First Claim
1. Apparatus for forming a continuous rod in cigarette manufacture, comprising:
- a conveyor belt;
air flow suction means capable of conveying a flow of tobacco particles with the aspirated air and of concentrating these particles in the form of a layer pressed against said conveyor belt; and
means for controlling the thickness of said layer of tobacco comprising;
a trimmer,first measurement means before said trimmer for measuring the porosity of said layer of tobacco,second measurement means before said trimmer for measuring the height of said layer of tobacco,signal processing means capable of producing a control parameter starting from measurement signals transmitted by said first and second measurement means, andadjustment means reacting to the instantaneous value of said parameter for adjusting the action of said trimmer.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A layer of tobacco (5) is accumulated against a conveyor belt (2) by a flow of air (6). A trimmer (7) eliminates the superfluous tobacco and forms the final layer (10) which is to be wrapped in paper to form the cigarette rod. One measuring unit (13) measures the thickness of the layer by means of the attenuation of a ray, while another measuring unit (14) measures the degree of porosity of the layer by means of the drop in air pressure between the bottom and the top of the layer. These two data are transmitted to an arithmetic unit (19) which forms a parameter (F), transmitted to a central processing unit (17) which supplies to a transducer (16) the pulses actuating an encoder (15) of a motor (11) governing the thickness of the final layer.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1. Apparatus for forming a continuous rod in cigarette manufacture, comprising:
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a conveyor belt; air flow suction means capable of conveying a flow of tobacco particles with the aspirated air and of concentrating these particles in the form of a layer pressed against said conveyor belt; and means for controlling the thickness of said layer of tobacco comprising; a trimmer, first measurement means before said trimmer for measuring the porosity of said layer of tobacco, second measurement means before said trimmer for measuring the height of said layer of tobacco, signal processing means capable of producing a control parameter starting from measurement signals transmitted by said first and second measurement means, and adjustment means reacting to the instantaneous value of said parameter for adjusting the action of said trimmer. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method of forming a continuous rod in cigarette manufacture, said method comprising the steps of providing a suction air flow for carrying along particles of tobacco to form a layer of tobacco applied against a conveyor belt, and trimming the layer of tobacco, wherein the improvement comprises the further steps of:
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continuously measuring, before trimming, the height and the porosity of the layer of tobacco; forming with the values resulting from the measuring step, and by application of a predetermined algorithm, a parameter corresponding to the linear density of the layer of tobacco; and controlling the trimming step by means of the formed parameter. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13)
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Specification