Apparatus for calibrating cigarette inspection device

Abstract

Apparatus is disclosed for calibrating a cigarette inspection device, whereby known defects, such as perforations, are placed in the wrappings of certain cigarettes as they pass through the cigarette inspection device, including a test drum for receiving the cigarettes to be inspected and associated with a pressure-responsive device to be connected successively to the interior of each cigarette at a test point, as it is moved about upon the periphery of the drum past the test point. In operation, a calibration control circuit is actuated to place a defect, in the form of a perforation, into three test cigarettes. Defects, of a magnitude greater than the acceptable limit, are placed in the first and third test cigarettes, and a defect within the acceptable limit is placed in the second test cigarette. The calibration control circuit is connected to the pressure-responsive device to measure the internal pressure within the test cigarette and the calibration control circuit may be adjusted to provide a manifestation that the first and third test cigarettes are defective and that the second cigarette is acceptable, whereby cigarettes to be subsequently tested are tested with regard to a pressure measurement that has been calibrated with respect to known, acceptable and unacceptable defects within the test cigarettes.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.