Servo driven ice cream sandwich assembly and wrapping machine

An apparatus for the preparation of a sandwich product comprising:

• a base having an infeed end and a discharge end;
• a sandwich product assembly station comprising an extruder nozzle mounted for discharge of a comestible filling material in the vertically downward direction, paired wafer trays for feeding wafers against opposite sides of said extruder nozzle, and a vertically actuated wafer pusher driven by a first actuator motor have a wafer pusher blade cooperating therewith to urge wafers downward into contact with said comestible filling material;
• an indexing wheel rotatably mounted vertically below said sandwich product assembly station, said indexing wheel defining a plurality of circumferentially positioned pockets for receiving and transferring assembled sandwiches for conveyance toward said discharge end, wherein said indexing wheel is driven by a first servo motor;
• a transport assembly having an indexing wheel ejector proximate to said indexing wheel, wherein said indexing wheel ejector is driven by an actuator, and a inclined elevator driven by a second actuator, wherein inclined elevator is positioned at a pre-determined angle;
• a wrapping assembly comprising a wrapping head having an upper platform, an elevator having a shaft for the upward travel of a sandwich product to said upper platform driven by an actuator for receiving said sandwich from the coordinated indexing wheel ejector and inclined elevator to deliver said sandwich product to said upper platform, side tucking device mounted adjacent said shaft wherein said side tucking device is driven by a servo motor, and pusher bar mounted adjacent said upper platform for urging the wrapped sandwich product off said elevator and toward said discharge end, wherein said push bar is driven by a servo motor;
• a wrapping feeder, wherein said wrapping feeder comprises a wrap roller driven by a servo motor to feed a wrap to said wrapping assembly;
• and
• a controller communicatively connected to each servo motor configured to control the servo motors and timing of each servo motor relative to each other according to a pre-determined program on a memory,
• wherein said base comprises a vertical wall member, and wherein said sandwich product assembly station, said sandwich transporting assembly, said sandwich wrapping assembly and said inclined elevator are all mounted in cantilevered relationship on said base.