Apparatus for feeding items of laundry to a laundry-treatment arrangement, in particular a mangle

Abstract

In order to do away with the need for large items of laundry which are spread out by a spreading arrangement (12) such that they hang down freely upstream of the feed conveyor (11) to be raised manually, as they are fitted manually into loading clamps (27), until they hang down freely, it is known for the loading clamps (27) to be displaced to the spreading arrangement (12) on obliquely upwardly directed conveyors (20). The large items of laundry are thus raised mechanically. For this purpose, the loading clamps (27) are arranged on carriages which can be displaced on upwardly directed rails. The disadvantage here is that the empty loading clamps have to be moved downwards on the rail again by the carriage before the next item of laundry can be fitted into the loading clamps (27). The invention makes provision for the loading clamps (27) to be arranged on conveyors (20) having endless toothed belts (21). The loading clamps (27) can thus be driven in circulation. In particular if the respective toothed belt (21) is assigned a plurality of loading clamps (27), the cycle times can be reduced.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.