Method of stacking multiple board groups
AssigneeAutomated Industrial Technologies, Inc.
InventorsGary SILL, Shawn LITTLE
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention provides a method and mechanism to build individual stacks of boards and collect them as a layer from a stream of single boards in the same orientation and direction positioned between a board feeding mechanism such as an unscrambler machine and a board handling mechanism such as a stacking machine in the pallet industry.
Claims12
An apparatus to build individual stacks of boards and collect them as a layer from a stream of single boards inline with a conveyor or other equipment comprising a spiral at the end of the conveyor or other equipment for receiving the single boards, the spiral having a first valley and a first and second peak adjacent each side of the first valley, the first valley adapted to receive two or more single boards in stacked relation, wherein the spiral is adapted to be rotated to move the two or more single boards downstream and provide a second valley and a third and fourth peak adjacent each side of the second valley for receiving an additional two or more single boards in stacked relation, wherein at the end of the spiral multiple groups of the two or more stacked boards are positioned for forming a layer of stacked boards.
A method of building individual stacks of boards and collecting them as a layer from a stream of single boards in the same orientation and direction positioned between a board feeding apparatus and a board handling apparatus comprising the steps of:
- (a) moving single boards on a first conveyor from the board feeding apparatus to a spiral apparatus;
- (b) the spiral apparatus receiving the single boards, the spiral apparatus comprising a first valley and a first and second peak adjacent each side of the first valley, the first valley adapted to receive two or more single boards in stacked relation, wherein the spiral is adapted to be rotated to move the two or more single boards downstream and provide a second valley and a third and fourth peak adjacent each side of the second valley for receiving an additional two or more single boards in stacked relation;
- and
- (c) moving the two or more stacks of single boards to a second conveyor to move the two or more stacks of boards to the board handling apparatus.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.