US 4,214,937 AGranted

Application of indicia to articles

AssigneeDennison Manufacturing Company

InventorsFriedrich H. H. Geurtsen, Waldeman Kebbel

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A compact and inexpensive decorator for transferring labels by heat and pressure from a carrier strip to articles such as bottles. The decorator is designed as a unit, including infeed and outfeed conveyors, a turret for holding articles during labelling and maintaining their shape by inflation, a deck bearing a transport for the carrier web and a device for impressing labels from the strip onto the articles, and a control module. For round articles the turret includes interchangeable Index and Decorator cups, while for oval articles an easily removed turret base with article cutouts is used. The deck may be adjusted in its height and angular orientation with respect to the turret to permit decoration of a wide variety of article faces. The carrier web transport includes a capstan web drive for pulling the web, a double gate, and a dancer roll, which provide label-by-label advance of the web controlled by signals from a photoelectric web monitor and a container detector. The double gate and dancer roll are included to avoid regions of slack or high tension in the web during intermittent advance.

Claims5

Dependent claims

In a device for transferring labels from a carrier web to articles comprising a turret for rotating the articles past a site of label transfer and a carrier web transport for directing the carrier web along a prescribed route at a desired speed, which prescribed route includes the site of label transfer,

an improved carrier web transport comprising:
web dispensing and collecting means;
a capstan web drive near the web collecting means for pulling the carrier web through the prescribed route during a period of label transfer, which capstan web drive exerts no pull on the web during interim periods between the periods of label transfer;
a dancer roll which is movable in a slot and is subjected to a force toward one end of the slot, which force is less than the pull exerted in the opposite direction by the capstan web drive during periods of label transfer;
and
a double gate at the other end of said slot including first and second jaws which alternately clamp the carrier web, the first jaw only during periods of label transfer and the second jaw only during interim periods;
wherein said prescribed route comprises respectively the web dispensing means, the first jaw, the dancer roll, the second jaw, the site of label transfer, the capstan web drive, and the web collecting means;
whereby the double gate and dancer roll collect a carrier web surplus from said web dispensing means during interim periods and release this surplus past the labelling site under the influence of the capstan web drive during periods of label transfer.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 05/913,775Filed 8 Jun 1978
Granted: 29 Jul 1980
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

B65C 3/12
The container being positioned for labelling with its centre-line horizontal: by rolling the labels onto cylindrical containers, e.g. bottles
B65C 9/1873
And being transferred directly from the backing strip onto the article: the transfer involving heating means, e.g. for decals
Y10T 156/171
Discrete spaced laminae on adhered carrier: means serially presenting discrete base articles or separate portions of a single article
B65C
Labelling or tagging machines, apparatus, or processes