Apparatus and method for feeding carton blanks from a magazine to carriers

An apparatus for fetching a blank from a magazine holding a number of blanks, each of the blanks being a folded planar blank of packaging material that is expandable to a sleeve shaped piece of packaging material, the apparatus comprising:

• a rotary feeder that includes a gripper comprised of a base structure and a gripper head,
• the gripper head including a projecting receiving structure that projects from the base structure and a suction cup mounted on the projecting receiving structure to grip one of the blanks,
• the rotary feeder and the gripper both being rotatable around a main rotational axis to move the gripper between a fetching position in which a blank is fetched and held by the suction cup and a releasing position in which the blank held by the suction cup is released,
• the gripper also being rotatable about a gripper specific rotational axis, different from the main rotational axis, to facilitate fetching of the blank when the gripper is in the fetching position,
• said gripper head being arranged to rotate around a gripper head specific rotational axis, the gripper head specific rotational axis being different from the gripper specific rotational axis;
• and
• a guide assembly fixedly attached to a frame, the guide assembly comprising a first guiding track and a second guiding track that are spaced apart from one another, the first and second guiding tracks each forming respective non-circular first and second cam curves,
• the first cam curve being a gripper head cam curve for controlling rotation of said gripper head around said gripper head specific rotational axis when said rotary feeder is rotated around said main rotational axis,
• the second cam curve being a gripper cam curve for controlling rotation of said gripper around said gripper specific rotational axis when said rotary feeder is rotated around said main rotational axis,
• the projecting receiving structure including a first roller that is in contacting engagement with the first cam curve of the first guiding track, and
• the base structure including a second roller that is in contacting engagement with the second cam curve of the second guiding track.