Automatic card or tag delivery apparatus
AssigneeDalton Systems, Inc.
InventorMichael L. Dalton
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A linear air cylinder drives a guided slide block or carriage on which is pivotally mounted a vacuum arm biased by a spring to a down horizontal position. Cam followers carried by crank arms on the pivoted vacuum arm engage fixed stops when the rod of the air cylinder is retracted to swing the vacuum arm to an upright tag pickup position. Tags stored in a hopper are transported one at a time to a horizontal position away from the hopper where they are attached to socks.
Claims7
A delivery apparatus for cards or tags comprising a substantially level support plate, a hopper structure for a stack of vertical cards on one end portion of the support plate, a linear guideway in fixed parallel relationship to the support plate below the support plate, a carriage element movably engaged with said guideway, a linear power actuator connected with said carriage element to drive it in opposite directions on the guideway, a vacuum arm means pivotally attached to the carriage element on a transverse horizontal pivot axis and having attached crank arm means, a spring biasing the vacuum arm means toward a level rest position when the carriage element is at the other end portion of the support plate, and a fixed stop in the path of movement of said crank arm means at an intermediate part of the support plate and engaging the crank arm means to swing the vacuum arm means to a substantially vertical position above the support plate in opposition to said spring, whereby the vacuum arm means can pick up a vertical card from said hopper structure and swing the card to a level position while transporting the card to said rest position where the card can be attached to an article.
A delivery apparatus for card-like elements comprising supporting means, a hopper for card-like elements on the supporting means, a horizontal guideway dependingly secured to the supporting means, a carriage element engaged movably on the guideway, power drive means connected with the carriage element, a vacuum arm pivotally attached near the top of the carriage element and being swingable to and from upright and horizontal positions, spring means interconnecting the carriage element and vacuum arm and biasing the vacuum arm to the horizontal position, a crank extension on the vacuum arm below the pivot axis of the vacuum arm, and a fixed abutment on the supporting means in the path of movement of the crank extension and engaging such extension during movement of the carriage element toward the hopper to swing the vacuum arm to the upright position against the force of the spring means so that the vacuum arm is in opposing relationship to card-like elements in the hopper and can transport a card from a vertical position in the hopper to a horizontal position away from the hopper at which position the card can be attached to an article.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.