US 5,085,111 AGranted

Apparatus for stacking flat articles

AssigneeWindmoller & Holscher

InventorHerbert Birkhofer

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Abstract

An apparatus is provided for stacking flat articles, such as double bags, which have been severed by hot-wire welding from a continuous tubular or semitubular plastic film and have opening-defining edges adjacent to their center lines. The bags are delivered by a transfer apparatus, called a wicketer. The wicketer has feeding arms, which are secured to a shaft and rotate about a horizontal axis and which are arranged in pairs in a starlike array. The bags are needled adjacent to their longitudinal center line on a holding plate, which is provided in a stacking station and carries upstanding stacking pins or needles, so that stacks are formed. Two radial holding plates are rotatably mounted on the shaft or axle and are connected to separate respective drives for pivotally moving the holding plates to a stacking position for receiving the articles. One of several types of devices is provided for removing the stacks from the holding plates, which have consecutively been rotated to the stacking position, and for removing the stacks.

Claims9

Dependent claims

An apparatus for stacking flat articles, which have been severed by hot-wire welding from a continuous tubular or semitubular plastic film and which have opening-defining edges adjacent to their center lines, comprising:

a wicketer forming a transfer apparatus having feeding arms, arranged in pairs and in a starlike array, secured to a shaft and rotating about a horizontal axis,
at least two radially disposed holding plates on which said bags are needled adjacent to their respective longitudinal center lines, said holding plates being provided in a stacking station and carrying upstanding stacking needles in order to form stacks of said flat articles, the at least two radially disposed holding plates being rotatably mounted on the shaft,
separate respective drives connected to each of the radially disposed holding plates, said separate respective drives pivotally moving and consecutively rotating said radially disposed holding plates to a stacking position for receiving the articles,
means for removing the stacks from the radially disposed holding plates, and
means for moving the stacks away from the radially disposed holding plates.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.