US 4,020,881 A · Automatic filling of flower pots

Abstract

In successive aligned groups, flower pots are gravity filled with earth in slight excess, the top compacted and leveled and a conical hole drilled in each to receive a plant, each successive operation being simultaneously carried out for the several pots in each group. To carry out this method a machine is disclosed with a horizontally moving conveyor reach on which empty pots are magazine-deposited, for intermittent movement, to pass successively to a station at a funnel-like earth filling device, to a station at a leveling device, to a station at a hole drilling device producing a conical, plant-ball receiving hole in each pot's earth fill; in particular embodiments the conveyor reach accepting from a tray magazine pot receiving trays holding pots in rows and columns, or the reach being a conveyor belt, plain or apertured to receive the pots in successive transverse rows; the earth conveyed from a storage hopper to a bucket elevator feeding said filling device; the hopper being disposed also for gravity return of earth removed at the leveling station.

Claims7

Dependent claims

A method for filling of flower pots with earth or the like and preparing them to receive balled young plants, comprising the successive steps of:

successively discharging, from a magazine onto a horizontal linear conveyor, like trays each having pot-receiving apertures arrayed in a plurality of transverse rows and earth drop-through holes between the apertures;
moving said trays incrementally by row spacings on said conveyor through the hereinafter named stations successively;
at a pot supply station, magazine filling successive rows of each tray with pots as the tray is halted in incremental movement, all the apertures of each row being simultaneously filled;
filling earth simultaneously into the pots in each row with a slight excess of earth at an earth filling station as each successive row of tray-arrayed pots is brought to a halt beneath the earth filling station by the incremental tray movement;
sweeping excess earth from the filled pots as they move from the earth filling station through a leveling station toward a hole-forming station;
in the incremental tray advance, halting the successive pot rows at the hole forming station and forming a generally centered hole in the earth of each pot simultaneously for all the pots in a row while the tray is stationary;
and
transporting each tray away from the hole forming station.

5 more elements

For filling of flower pots carried in like trays each having a plurality of transverse rows of pot-receiving apertures, apparatus comprising:

a horizontally extended frame;
a conveying mechanism including a linear moving tray-receiving reach horizontally disposed on the frame and driven to move trays intermittently and by increments corresponding to tray row spacings, from an input to a discharge end;
a tray magazine on the frame at and above an input end of the conveyor mechanism discharging trays successively onto said reach;
a pot magazine on the frame above, and spaced from the tray magazine along the reach, said pot magazine discharging pots simultaneously to fill the apertures of each row, the rows being filled successively;
a pot filling device above the reach and spaced in the direction of conveyor travel from the pot magazine, and including a funnel-like earth receiver with a downward mouth opening elongated transversely of the reach to fill simultaneously all the pots in at least one row of a tray therebeneath;
an earth leveling device and a hole forming device disposed on said frame above and spaced successively along the conveying reach in the direction of conveyor travel;
said leveling device including an element extending transversely across said reach for removing excess earth from the tops of tray-carried filled pots passed thereunder;
said hole forming device comprising a ganged plurality of simultaneously vertically reciprocable elements arranged in a spaced series transversely of said reach with spacing corresponding to the center-to-center spacing of pot-receiving apertures of a said row for forming respective plant-receiving holes in the earth fill of tray-carried pots;
an earth supply hopper disposed beneath said reach, said reach permitting earth falling from said trays at the filling, leveling and hole forming devices to drop back to said hopper;
and earth conveying means for conveying earth from said hopper to said earth receiver of the filling device;
whereby trays are successively fed onto said conveyor reach and completely automatically carried under the pot magazine, the pot earth filling device, the leveling and the hole drilling device, the individual stations then becoming operative when a row of pot openings attains the proper disposition under the respective device.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Automatic filling of flower pots

Life of this patent

Automatic filling of flower pots

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims7