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US 5,495,933 AGranted
Chain driven pallet accumulating over/under chain conveyor
AssigneeRoberts Sinto Corporation
InventorJack D. Gyger
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An over/under pallet accumulating chain conveyor is described in which the pallets are supported on the center roller strand of triple roller strand chain loops to achieve a balanced loading of the chain pins. The pallets have sets of roller pairs engaged by a pallet drive disc having pockets receiving the rollers to drive the pallets around the chain sprocket axes, the pallets returning inverted on the return chain loop segments. The pallets can be linked together to accommodate larger sized workpieces. For declined conveyors, anti-runaway dogs carried by the carrier positively engage the chain.
Claims14
An accumulating conveyor comprising:
- a conveyor frame extending along the length of said conveyor;
- a pair of triple roller strand drive chain loops on each side of said conveyor frame, each triple strand chain loop supported for recirculating movement to advance along an upper region of said conveyor frame and return along a lower region of said conveyor frame;
- a pair of chain sprockets rotated about a common axis and located to receive a roller strand of a respective chain loop and guiding said chain through said recirculating movement, each of said drive chain loops passing around a respective sprocket in its recirculating movement;
- a series of pallets resting on said drive chain loops in said upper region of said conveyor chain to be frictionally driven thereby;
- a pair of pallet drive discs, each having a rim and mounted for rotation about an axis aligned with said chain sprocket axes, each pallet drive disc mounted adjacent to a respective chain sprocket with another roller strand of a respective chain passing over said rim of said pallet drive disc;
- a series of circumferentially spaced recesses on each of said pallet drive discs and two side-by-side sets of a lengthwise spaced pair of engagement features on the underside of each of said pallets located to be successively received in recesses of said pallet drive discs as said pallet drive disc rotates, so that said pallets are successively driven by said pallet drive discs to be inverted and deposited on the chain loops in said lower region of said conveyor frame to be frictionally driven in a return path;
- and
- means for holding said sets of pallet engagement features in said pallet drive disc recesses by said triple roller strand chain loops in passing around the axis of rotation of said pallet drive discs and sprockets, whereby said pallets are held in being inverted by rotation about said axis.
5 more elements
An accumulating conveyor comprising:
- a conveyor frame extending along the length of said conveyor;
- at least one drive chain loop supported for recirculating movement to advance along an upper region of said conveyor frame and return along a lower region of said conveyor frame;
- a drive sprocket rotated about an axis and driving said chain loop through said recirculating movement said drive chain loop passing around said axis in its recirculating movement;
- a series of pallets frictionally driven by said drive chain loop;
- a pallet drive disc mounted for rotation about an axis, aligned with said drive sprocket axis;
- engagement means acting between said pallet drive disc and the underside structure on each of said pallets, said pallets successively engaged by said pallet drive disc as said pallet drive disc rotates, so that said pallets are successively driven by said pallet drive disc to be inverted and deposited on the chain loop to be frictionally driven in a return path;
- subgroupings of two or more pallets linked together by self-aligning connecting structure so as to space successively linked pallets the same distance as between linked pallets in each other subgrouping of linked pallets, whereby subgroupings of linked pallets can be driven successively about said pallet drive disc.
4 more elements
A chain conveyor comprising:
- a conveyor frame;
- an endless loop of drive chain mounted for recirculation on said conveyor frame and drive means for recirculating said drive chain loop;
- a series of pallets resting on said drive chain loop to be frictionally driven thereby;
- a dog pivotally mounted on each pallet having a portion tending to be gravity biased into engagement with said drive chain in which said pallet cannot move ahead on said drive chain, whereby said pallet is prevented from running ahead of said drive chain.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.