Apparatus for printing and feeding caps to a bottle capping machine
AssigneeHoneywell Farms, Inc.
InventorLeo J. Von Hagel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Apparatus for filling, capping and dating thin-walled plastic milk bottles. The date is embossed into the caps just before they are applied to the filled bottles while they are retained in indexed position by a special ratchet-pawl arrangement. The caps are screwed on by a rotating chuck having jaws that engage only a portion of the periphery of the cap. There is a lost-motion connection between the chuck and its spindle.
Claims5
In an apparatus for filling, capping and dating bottles, comprising means for feeding bottles through said apparatus, bottle filling means, means for feeding plastic caps to the filled bottles and means for applying said caps to said bottles, the improvement comprising means for printing a date on said caps before they are applied to the bottles, said printing means including cap-imprinting means and indexing means for accurately locating the caps successively in printing position in fixed relationship to said imprinting means, said indexing means including pawl means, means for driving said pawl means, cap engaging means, a toothed ratchet wheel operatively connected to said cap engaging means and driven by said pawl means, the construction and arrangement being such that during the driving of said pawl means said pawl means engages a tooth of said ratchet wheel to move said ratchet wheel and means to wedge said pawl means against the teeth of said ratchet wheel to prevent movement of said ratchet wheel.
In an apparatus for filling, capping and dating bottles, comprising means for feeding bottles through said apparatus, bottle filling means, means for feeding plastic caps to the filled bottles, and means for applying said caps to said bottles, the improvement comprising means for printing a date on said caps before they are applied to the bottles, said printing means including cap-imprinting means and indexing means for accurately locating the caps successively in printing position in fixed relationship to said imprinting means, said indexing means including pawl means, means for driving said pawl means, cap engaging means, a toothed ratchet wheel operatively connected to said cap engaging means driven by said pawl means, said pawl means having a first shoulder for engaging a first tooth of said ratchet wheel to move said ratchet wheel, a second shoulder for engaging the next tooth of said ratchet wheel to move said ratchet wheel further, and a blocking face for substantially conforming to the rear face of a tooth of said ratchet wheel, and means for keeping said faces in contact to prevent further movement of said ratchet wheel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.