An apparatus for extracting stacked articles from a cardboard container, comprising:
- a store for receiving cardboard containers having an elongate box shape and conformed in such a way as to comprise a bottom closed by a tab and containing internally thereof articles stacked on one another, the store being configured in such a way as to receive the cardboard containers arranged in a line, flanked one following another and wherein the cardboard containers are arranged with the bottom thereof closed by the tab facing downwards;
- a rest and sliding plane, substantially vertical and transversal to the store;
- wherein the store and the rest and sliding plane are reciprocally arranged in such a way that a first cardboard container of the line of cardboard containers present in the store is resting on a relative lateral face on the rest and sliding plane in a first pick-up position with respect to the rest and sliding plane;
- an unloading channel for unloading the articles contained internally of the cardboard containers, arranged in a second unloading position with respect to the rest and sliding plane, laterally and inferiorly of the rest and sliding plane and distant from the first pick-up position;
- an abutting plane, substantially horizontal and transversal to the rest and sliding plane and arranged laterally to the store between the first pick-up position and the unloading channel and having an opening at the inlet of the unloading channel;
- abutting and folding means, for abutting and folding the tab which closes the bottom of the cardboard containers, arranged laterally to the store in proximity of the first pick-up position and configured to abut the tab and fold the tab with respect to the cardboard containers;
- a first suction pick-up and transfer group;
- a second suction pick-up and transfer group;
- wherein the first suction pick-up and transfer group is configured and predisposed in such a way as to be activatable and movable with respect to the rest and sliding plane so as to abut and retain by suction the lateral face of a cardboard container which is located in the store in the first pick-up position, resting on the rest and sliding plane, and to transfer the cardboard container, by sliding the container along the rest and sliding plane on the lateral face, into a waiting position flanked to the opening of the abutting plane and therefore flanked to the inlet of the unloading channel so that, during the transfer of the cardboard container, the abutting and folding means abut a portion of the tab so as to fold the tab with respect to the cardboard container in order to open the bottom of the cardboard container and the abutting plane maintains the articles inside the cardboard container, preventing the articles from falling;
- wherein the second suction pick-up and transfer group is configured and predisposed in such a way, once the first group has positioned the cardboard container in the waiting position, as to be activatable and movable with respect to the rest and sliding plane so as to abut and retain by suction the lateral face of the cardboard container in the waiting position, resting on the rest and sliding plane and, following the deactivation of the first group, transferring the cardboard container with the bottom open, sliding the container along the rest and sliding plane on the lateral face thereof, from the waiting position to the second unloading position at the unloading channel in such a way that the open bottom is at the opening of the abutting plane and at the inlet of the unloading channel so that the articles contained therein can fall by gravity in the unloading channel and are then extracted from the cardboard container in order to be transferred to a packaging machine.