Bag handling apparatus

In a bag palletizer for arranging and stacking bags of material on pallets, the combination comprising:

• conveying means for feeding bags of material at a controlled rate;
• bag turning means for turning the bags for orienting the bags to form a predetermined layer pattern including a turntable for supporting the bags for turning, a live roller conveyor section for conveying bags onto and off said turntable, and a combination rotary and linear motor actuator coupled to said turntable extendable by the operation of a drive means and control for raising said turntable and rotating said turntable in predetermined increments, said drive means including a rotary drive motor to rotate said actuator having an indexing means for rotating said actuator, said indexing means indexing in three successive 90-degree increments in the same direction from any starting point for rotating said turntable in selected increments of 90.degree., 180.degree. or 270.degree. from said starting point;
• a pair of stripper plates separable from one another for depositing formed layer patterns of bags onto a pallet;
• and
• elevator means for raising pallets into position under said stripper plates and for incrementally lowering the pallets as layer patterns as bags are stacked onto a pallet.

In a bag palletizer for arranging and stacking bags of material on pallets, the combination comprising:

• conveying means for feeding bags of material at a controlled rate;
• bag turning means for turning the bags for orienting the bags to form a predetermined layer pattern including a turntable for supporting the bags for turning, a live roller conveyor section coupled to said conveying means for conveying bags onto and off of said turntable, and a combination rotary and linear motion actuator coupled to said turntable extendable by the operation of a control circuit for raising said turntable and mechanically rotatable by an electric rotary drive motor coupled to an indexing means for rotating the turntable in predetermined increments, said indexing means serving to selectively rotate said turntable in three successive 90-degree increments in the same direction from any starting point for rotating said bags in increments of 90.degree., 180.degree. or 270.degree. from said starting point;
• a live roller conveyor load table coupled to said bag turning means live roller conveyor wherein the oriented bags are formed into a layer pattern;
• a pair of stripper plates separable from one another for depositing formed layer patterns of bags onto a pallet;
• pusher means for pushing the formed layer patterns of bags from said live roller conveyor load table onto said stripper plates;
• elevator means for raising pallets into position under said stripper plates and for incrementally lowering the pallets as layer patterns of bags are stacked onto a pallet, said elevator means including a reversible drive motor and a control for automatically operating said motor responsive to the load on said motor resulting from a layer being compressed whereby, after a preselected compressing force is applied, said motor is stopped and reversed for applying a substantially uniform compression to each layer independently of the number of layers;
• means for supplying single pallets to said elevator means for loading;
• full pallet conveying means for conveying full pallets from said elevator means;
• and
• control means for selectively operating said bag turning means, stripper plates, pusher means, elevator means, pallet supplying means and second conveying means in a continuous sequence to palletize said bags and remove formed units of palletized bags.

Bag flattening apparatus for flattening and distributing material in a bag comprising, in combination:

• first conveying means having a first conveying surface for travel at a selected speed for conveying said bags;
• second conveying means spaced apart from and approximately parallel to said first conveying means and having a second conveying surface for travel at approximately said selected speed for flattening said bags;
• and
• mounting means for movably mounting said second conveying means with respect to said first conveying means such that said bags are conveyed between said first and second conveying surfaces and compressed by the weight of said second conveying means against said first conveying means, said mounting means including a parallelogram-type linkage attached to said first and second conveying means, a stationary support member attached to said first conveyor, a movable support member attached to said second conveyor via said linkage, and a pneumatic actuator charged with compressed air at a selected pressure mounted between said stationary and movable support members, said stationary and movable support members being disposed such that the weight of the upper conveying means tends to compress said pneumatic actuator and an expansion of said pneumatic actuator by increased pressure raises said upper conveying means whereby to serve to dispose said first and second conveying means at a selected distance from one another and to provide a flexible means of support for the upper conveying means with respect to the lower conveying means by having movement between said attachments at opposite ends to said support members during the passage of bags between said first and second conveying means.

Bag flattening apparatus for flattening and evenly distributing material within the bags comprising:

• a first conveyor having a first conveying surface traveling at a selected speed;
• a second conveyor having a second conveying surface traveling at approximately said selected speed;
• and
• a linkage for pivotally mounting said second conveyor on said first conveyor such that said first and second conveying surfaces are spaced a selected distance apart substantially parallel to one another and a bag is conveyed between said first and second conveying surfaces and compressed by the weight of said first conveyor against said second conveyor, said linkage including a stationary support member attached to said first conveyor, a movable support member attached to said second conveyor, and a pneumatic actuator mounted between said support members charged with compressed air at a selected pressure, said stationary and movable support members being disposed such that the weight of the second conveyor tends to compress said pneumatic actuator and an expansion of said pneumatic actuator by increased pressure raises said second conveyor whereby to serve to maintain said first and second conveyors at a selected distance from one another and to provide a flexible means of support for the second conveyor with respect to the first conveyor by having movement between said said attachments at opposite ends of said support members during the passage of bags between said first and second conveyors.

Bag turner apparatus for turning and orienting bags of material to form a predetermined pattern arrangement comprising:

• a turntable;
• conveying means having a conveying surface for conveying bags onto and off said turntable;
• a combination rotary and linear actuator having a cylinder rod coupled to said turntable extendable and retractable for raising said turntable above said conveying surface and rotatable for rotating said turntable for turning the bags;
• first drive means for extending and retracting said cylinder rod for raising and lowering said turntable;
• second drive means for rotating said cylinder rod in predetermined increments including a rotary drive motor coupled to said cylinder rod through an indexing means for rotating said actuator, said indexing means indexing in three successive 90-degree increments in the same direction from any starting point for rotating said turntable in selected increments of 90.degree., 180.degree. or 270.degree. from said starting point;
• and
• control means operable for actuating said first drive means for selectively raising and lowering said turntable and operable for actuating said indexing means for selectively rotating said turntable in said predetermined increments.

Bag turner apparatus for turning and orienting the bags for forming a predetermined layer pattern comprising:

• a section of live roller conveyor having a plurality of parallel spaced powdered rollers;
• a turntable nestable on said powdered rollers below the top surfaces of said rollers for receiving conveyed bags from said rollers and mounted for up-and-down movement for raising bags off of the rollers and for rotational movement for turning the bags;
• a combination linear and rotary motion pneumatic actuator having a cylinder rod coupled to said turntable extendable and retractable for raising and lowering said turntable, and rotatable for rotating said turntable;
• pneumatic drive means coupled to said pneumatic actuator for pneumatically extending and retracting said cylinder rod;
• mechanical drive means for rotating said cylinder rod including a rotary drive motor drivably coupled to said cylinder rod through a solenoid-operated 90-degree indexing clutch-brake;
• and
• control means including a bag counter having a photoelectric eye sensor for counting bags and a programmable memory for selectively actuating said pneumatic drive means and said mechanical drive means to lift and rotate said turntable in three successive 90-degree increments in the same direction from any starting point for rotating said turntable in increments of 90.degree., 180.degree., or 270.degree. depending on the count of a bag of orienting the bags in a predetermined pattern.

Stripper plate apparatus for depositing a layer pattern of bags of material onto a pallet comprising:

• first and second plates mounted for movement between a closed position and an open position, said first and second plates being of a corresponding size and shape and disposed for coplanar sliding movement in linear ball bushings;
• and
• drive means on one side of said plates only including a motive power source, a first coupling between said motive power source and said first plate to move said first plate between said first and second positions, and a second coupling between said first plate and said second plate wherein said second plate is moved simultaneously with and in an opposite direction to the movement of said first plate,
• said motive power source being in the form of a pneumatic cylinder having a cylinder rod that moves between an extended and a retracted position,
• said first coupling being in the form of a connector between said cylinder rod and said first plate and arranged whereby as the cylinder rod is extended said first plate is moved toward the open position and as the cylinder rod is retracted said first plate is moved toward the closed position,
• said second coupling being in the form of a single endless chain mounted on opposed sprockets on one side of said plates only, said cylinder rod moving said chain which in turn moves said second plate simultaneously with and in an opposite direction to said first plate.

Pallet layer compressing apparatus comprising:

• stripper plate means onto which layer patterns of bags are deposited for delivery to a pallet;
• elevator means including a carriage supporting a pallet arranged to move between an up position and a down position and carriage drive means for moving said carriage and pallet between up and down positions;
• and
• control means for said carriage drive means for regulating the movement of said carriage and pallet whereby, after each layer pattern of bags is deposited from said stripper plate means onto said pallet, said stripper plate means is moved to a closed position and said bags on said pallet are moved up by the movement of said carriage to vertically compress the bags on the pallet, followed by being moved down in increments as layer patterns of bags are successively stacked onto a pallet, said carriage drive means including a reversible electric motor arranged for raising and lowering the pallet with layers thereon and a reversing motor control, said reversing motor control having a sensor for sensing the rate of change of current drawn by the electric motor arranged to de-energize and then reverse the motor for a selected time period after each layer compression of the layer patterns on the bag for a substantially uniform compression of each layer of the bags independently of motor current and number of bag layers.

In bag handling apparatus, the combination comprising:

• first means for flattening and distributing the material in a bag;
• second means for metering a plurality of the bags in a series at spaced intervals at a controlled rate;
• third means for turning the bags through selected angles to orient the bags for selected layer patterns, said third means rotating said bags in increments of either 90.degree., 180.degree. or 270.degree. from any starting point, said third means including:
• a turntable,
• conveying means having a conveying surface for conveying bags onto and off of said turntable,
• a combination rotary and linear actuator having a cylinder rod coupled to said turntable extendable and retractable for raising said turntable above said conveying surface and rotatable for rotating said turntable for turning the bags,
• first drive means for extending and retracting said cylinder rod for raising and lowering said turntable,
• second drive means for rotating said cylinder rod in predetermined increments including a rotary drive motor coupled to said cylinder rod through an indexing means, and
• control means operable for actuating said first drive means for selectively raising and lowering said turntable and operable for actuating said indexing means for selectively rotating said turntable in predetermined increments;
• fourth means for squaring and compacting the bags forming the selected layer pattern;
• fifth means for depositing the layer pattern of bags onto a pallet;
• sixth means for vertically compressing each layer as a stack of layers on the pallet after deposit onto said pallet, said sixth means for vertically compressing including a reversible drive motor and a control for automatically operating said motor responsive to the load on said motor resulting from a layer being compressed whereby, after a preselected compressing force is applied, said motor is stopped and reversed for applying a substantially uniform compression to each layer independently of the number of layers;
• and
• seventh means for providing a pallet, one at a time, for each loading cycle.