US 5,169,284 AGranted

Grasping and transfer claw

AssigneeFabriques de Tabac Reunies, S.A.

InventorsMaurice Berger, Jean Cestonaro

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Abstract

The claw (2) is made up of a front part (3), moved vertically by a jack (31) and comprising a horizontal pressing plate (30) and a rear pressing plate (34), and a rear part (4) moved horizontally via another jack (46) and comprising a lower pressing plate (40) suspended by a pivot pin (42) from a stirrup-piece (41), a further jack (47 l) acting upon the rearward end (40A) of the lower pressing plate in order to raise and lower the front end (40B) thereof. When the rear pressing plate is lowered opposite a stack of blanks to be grasped, a slight depression (52) is created, whereby it is then possible to slip the front end of the lower pressing plate under the stack in order grasp it by raising the lower pressing plate and pressing the stack against the upper pressing plate. The claw is intended to be integrated in a depalletizer feeding a packing machine, particularly a machine making packs in the tobacco industry, especially packs of cigarettes. A plurality of such claws may be mounted side by side for grasping a whole row of stacks of blanks simultaneously. A sweeper device (36) mounted on each rear pressing plate allows the entire top layer of rows of stacks to be pushed back when the depalletizer detects that the row to be grasped is the first one of the layer, in order to form a ledge necessary for creating the aforementioned depression.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A grasping and transfer claw intended to be mounted on materials handling apparatus having a mobile carriage, wherein the improvement comprises:

a first support element fixed to the mobile carriage of the apparatus,
a first actuating means having a casing fixed to said first support element,
a front claw portion and a rear claw portion fixed to said first support element, said front claw portion including a horizontal upper pressing plate having a rear portion and extending toward an object to be grasped, and said rear claw portion including a guide rail oriented toward the object to be grasped and fixed to said first support element behind said first actuating means,
a vertical rear pressing plate fixed perpendicular to said rear portion of said horizontal upper pressing plate and extending toward the bottom of the object to be grasped, said horizontal upper pressing plate and said vertical rear pressing plate being secured to said first actuating means for vertical movement,
a second actuating means having a casing fixed to said first support element,
a second support element slidingly movable along said guide rail of said rear claw portion by said second actuating means,
a stirrup-piece disposed vertically and fixed to said second support element,
a third actuating means having a casing fixed to said second support element behind said stirrup-piece,
a horizontal pivot pin fixed to said stirrup-piece, and
a lower pressing plate having a forward portion extending toward the object to be grasped and a rearward portion forming the continuation of said forward portion, said lower pressing plate being mounted on said pivot pin between said forward portion and said rearward portion, and said rearward portion of said lower pressing plate being pivotable about said pivot pin by said third actuating means for assuming a substantially horizontal position or an inclined position.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.