Article feeding system

In an article feeding mechanism including a conveyor having an upper reach with laterally movable article carriers, said carriers having depending switch pins, and gate and track means that guide the carrier pins for arranging a single lane input of articles into a multiple lane output;

• the improvement wherein said article carriers are arranged in two separate groups, each carrier being provided with a single fixed switch pin, the input end of said upper reach having a lane for the switch pins of each group, cam means in the path of said pins for laterally separating the two groups of carriers, movable gate means in the path of each of said carrier groups for further diverting the carriers of each group toward one or the other of two discharge lanes, and control means for operating said gate means to direct the carriers of each group toward their two associated discharge lanes, means for sensing the presence of an article on each group of said carriers in said input lane, said gate means being alternately actuated in response to the sensing of the presence of an article on each group of said carriers at said input lane, said control means being effective to maintain each of said gate means in its formerly actuated position until an article on a group of carriers destined for that gate means is detected by said sensing means, said control means including a cam operating in timed relation to the movement of said article carriers along said conveyor reach, a pair of contacts operated alternately by said cam, a relay energized by each contact, said sensing means comprises, and a photoelectric sensor for detecting the presence or absence of an article on each group of carriers, said photoelectric sensor preconditioning said control means to actuate the gate corresponding to a given group of carriers in the presence of an article thereon, or to interrupt the control circuit to maintain the former position of the gate means in the absence of an article, one of said carrier groups being discharged at the left side of the longitudinal centerline of said conveyor reach and the other of said carrier groups being discharged at the right side of said conveyor reach, said control means including means for separately actuating said gate means to independently control the left side group of carriers and the right side group of carriers, either of said gate means being effective to divert its associated carrier groups with or without prior actuation of the other gate means.