US 4,535,583 AGranted

Rotary type capping apparatus

AssigneeShibuya Kogyo Co., Ltd.

InventorsHideo Tanaka, Shiaru Muranaka

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Abstract

A rotary type capping apparatus for screwing caps onto the mouths of containers includes a turn table provided with a plurality of container holders fixedly mounted along the periphery thereof, a main motor for rotating the turn table in a predetermined direction and a capping head assembly including a plurality of cap holders, each of which is disposed above the corresponding one of the plurality of container holders, so as to be movable closer to or away from the turn table. In one aspect of the present invention, the capping apparatus includes at least one motor exclusively used for rotating the cap holders for causing the caps held by the cap holders to be screwed onto the mouths of containers. In another aspect of the present invention, the capping apparatus is so structured to increase the torque applied to a cap until it has reached a predetermined level during the cap screwing operation thereby insuring that all caps may be screwed on as tightly as desired.

Claims13

Dependent claims

Apparatus for capping screw caps onto the mouths of containers, comprising:

carrier means for securely and temporarily carrying said containers;
cap holding means for releasably holding said caps to cap said containers, said cap holding means being rotatably supported;
driving means for rotating said cap holding means in a predetermined direction, said driving means including a torque motor which is operatively connected to said cap holding means so as to rotate said cap holding means in said predetermined direction;
moving means for moving said cap holding means between an operative position where capping is to be carried out and an inoperative position where said cap holding means is located away from said containers carried on said carrier means;
and
control means for controlling said driving means to increase the torque of said cap holding means until a predetermined level is reached while said cap holding means are capping said caps onto the mouths of said containers, said control means including first detecting means for detecting the rotating condition of said torque motor and a control circuit for controlling the torque of said cap holding means in accordance with information supplied from said first detecting means.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.