Pouch containment and carton loading
AssigneeR.A. Jones & Co. Inc.
InventorsWilliam E. Engelhardt, Steven C. Hamilton, Eric M. Schaefer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A stack of products such as pouches are formed in a product bucket, pushed into a stack guide bucket and from there into a carton. A stack tamp descends over the stack, engages and confines it downwardly during stack pushing from product bucket and through stack guide bucket into a carton. Multiple product buckets, stack guide buckets and cartons move downstream during cartoning, and are respectively aligned in a cartoning station. Reciprocal containment blades hold the stack in respective cartons prior to flap closing.
Claims9
An apparatus for loading stacks of product into cartons, comprising:
- a product bucket having a discharge end;
- an elongated static stack guide having a terminal end;
- a product stack guide bucket;
- said static stack guide being operably disposed between said discharge end of said product bucket and said stack guide bucket upstream from the terminal end of said static stack guide;
- a reciprocally and vertically operable tamp foot oriented to tamp down a product stack in said product bucket and said product stack guide bucket;
- a stack pusher oriented to push a product stack from said product bucket into said stack guide bucket, past said terminal end of said static stack guide and into a carton;
- a reciprocally and vertically operable stack containment blade extending in a vertical direction of a reciprocal motion of the stack containment blade and being configured to directly confront and confine a rearward end of said pushed stack within said carton;
- and
- at least one flap closer configured to close at least one flap of said carton against a loaded product stack.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.