Conveyor transfer guards
AssigneeFlexible Steel Lacing Company
InventorMark Steven Pettinga
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In one aspect, a transfer guard member having a body for being positioned in a gap intermediate conveying surfaces, an upper portion of the body for spanning the gap and outer portions of the upper body for slidingly engaging the conveying surfaces, and a pair of spaced, resilient legs having distal end portions for resiliently and slidingly engaging the conveying surfaces. In another aspect, a transfer guard member having a body and at least one attachment member of the body configured for being detachably fixed to a mounting bar. The body has at least one recess adjacent the attachment member for receiving at least one attachment member of another transfer guard member fixed to the mounting bar so that upper transfer surfaces of the attachment members are adjacent one another.
Claims24
An apparatus for a conveyor system having curved, upstream and downstream conveying surfaces operable to convey an object in a downstream longitudinal direction across a gap between the upstream and downstream conveying surfaces, the apparatus comprising:
- a body configured to be supported in the gap by the upstream and downstream conveying surfaces;
- an upper portion of the body having an upstream contact portion for slidingly contacting the upstream conveying surface and a downstream contact portion for slidingly contacting the downstream conveying surface;
- an upstream lower member depending from the upper portion and having an upstream lower free end portion to be positioned below a narrowest portion of the gap;
- an upstream intermediate portion of the upstream lower member configured to extend in the narrowest portion of the gap spaced longitudinally from the upstream conveying surface to limit contact between the upstream lower member and the upstream conveying surface;
- a downstream lower member depending from the upper portion and having a downstream lower free end portion to be positioned below the narrowest portion of the gap;
- a downstream intermediate portion of the downstream lower member configured to extend in the narrowest portion of the gap spaced longitudinally from the upstream intermediate portion;
- and
- the downstream intermediate portion configured to extend in the narrowest portion of the gap spaced longitudinally from the downstream conveying surface to limit contact between the downstream lower member and the downstream conveying surface.
An apparatus for a conveyor system having curved, upstream and downstream conveying surfaces operable to convey an object in a downstream longitudinal direction across a gap between the upstream and downstream conveying surfaces, the apparatus comprising:
- a body configured to be supported in the gap by the upstream and downstream conveying surfaces;
- an upper portion of the body having upstream and downstream contact portions for slidingly contacting the upstream and downstream conveying surfaces above a narrowest portion of the gap;
- a lower portion of the body configured to be positioned below the narrowest portion of the gap to keep the body in the gap;
- an intermediate portion of the body connecting the upper and lower portions of the body, the intermediate portion configured to extend in the narrowest portion of the gap spaced from the upstream and downstream conveying surfaces;
- an upstream recessed portion of the body below the upstream contact portion and above the intermediate portion of the body, the upstream recessed portion of the body offset downstream of the upstream contact portion, the upstream recessed portion being at a first longitudinal offset distance from the upstream conveying surface with the body in the gap that is greater than a second longitudinal distance between the intermediate portion and the upstream conveying surface with the body in the gap;
- a downstream recessed portion of the body below the downstream contact portion and above the intermediate portion of the body, the downstream recessed portion of the body offset upstream of the downstream contact portion, the downstream recessed portion being at a third longitudinal distance from the downstream conveying surface with the body in the gap that is greater than a fourth longitudinal distance between the intermediate portion and the downstream conveying surface with the body in the gap.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.