Container toppling system

Abstract

A system for toppling upright containers forward to form a stick or line of spaced, laid down containers. The containers can be cylindrically sidewalled cans filled with product and sealed closed. The upright containers are fed into a pair of horizontally disposed and spaced screws which are rotating in opposite directions about their respective axes. The rotation axis of one screw is disposed a distance above that of the other. The screws grasp the container sidewalls, and as the containers are conveyed through the screws the container tops are swung laterally down part way to one side and then laterally back down the other way and forward to a container longitudinal lay-down position. The screws rotate downwardly and inwardly so as to not lift the bottoms of the containers off of the conveyor system which conveys the upright containers to the toppling screws, through the screws as they are being toppled and away from screws in a line after having been positively toppled forward and longitudinally down.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.