Stacking station for a thermoforming plant, method for producing cup-shaped products and thermoforming plant

A stacking station to stack thermoformed cup-shaped products formed from a continuous film strip in a thermoforming installation comprising:

• an ejector that ejects the cup-shaped products from an index;
• a pre-stack conveyor situated below the index, the pre-stack conveyor receiving the cup-shaped products ejected from the index to form pre-stacks of the cup-shaped products;
• a tilting device situated downstream of the pre-stack conveyor and comprised of a tilting edge adjacent to the pre-stack conveyor, the tilting edge tilts the cup-shaped product from a pre-stack orientation to a stacking orientation;
• a drop shaft situated adjacent to the tilting edge of the tilting device, the drop shaft receiving the tilted cup-shaped products from the tilting device, the drop shaft including walls, a stack floor, and a fall brake that slows down the tilted cup-shaped products via friction falling through the drop shaft from the tilting edge to the stack floor;
• and
• a deflector device situated in the drop shaft, the deflector device being activated to discharge a row of the cup-shaped products if one of the cup-dash shaped products does not fulfil quality requirements.