Dynamic Buffer

A dynamic buffer, associated to two conveyor lines, a first line of the conveyor lines being supplied with articles coming from a first machine, and a second line of the conveyor lines supplying a second machine with the articles, motorizing organs of the conveyor lines being managed by a command and control unit in accordance with operating conditions of the machines, the dynamic buffer comprising:

• a buffer conveyor constituted by a plurality of platforms arranged in sequence along a ring-wound trajectory, with each of the platforms being destined to receive at least an article;
• first handling organs commanded and controlled by the command and control unit in order to cyclically transfer the articles from the first line to the second line;
• second handling organs, commanded and controlled by the command and control unit, acting between an operating station in which the platforms of the buffer conveyor transit and one or the other of the lines, which second handling organs during a reduction or a halting of a productivity of the second machine are apt to displace the articles from the first line to corresponding platforms of the buffer conveyor, and which second handling organs are further destined, once productivity of the second machine has increased or returned to normal and in phase relation both with an activation of the first handling organs and with an increase in velocity of the second line, to pick-up the articles from the platforms in a predetermined order such as to place the articles in the second line in a predetermined alternation with the articles transferred onto the second line by the first handling organs, up to when the buffer conveyor is completely evacuated.