Unit and method for forming a group of products on a wrapping machine
AssigneeAzionaria Costruzioni Macchine Automatiche A.C.M.A. S.p.A.
InventorsMario Spatafora, Enrico Campagnoli
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A unit and method for forming a group of products on a wrapping machine, whereby a continuous supply conveyor feeds a succession of products to an input of a group-forming screw device; and a step-operated supply device, located at an output of the screw device, is controlled by a sensor for detecting the length of each group, to only feed complete groups to a wrapping unit of the wrapping machine.
Claims10
A unit for forming a group of products on a wrapping machine, the unit (5) comprising a vertical channel (8) for a group (3) of products (2), the channel (8) having a bottom portion (13) and a top portion (14);
- a screw device (12) located along said bottom portion (13) and having an input (17) and an output (18);
- a supply conveyor (19) for feeding a succession of said products (2) to said input (17);
- a sensor (32) for detecting the presence of a complete said group (3) at said output (18) and in said top portion (14);
- an extracting device (27) controlled by said sensor (32) to extract the complete said group (3) from a top end (11) of said channel (8);
- and a push device (29) moving back and forth in a direction (30) crosswise to said channel (8) to feed the extracted complete said group (3) to a wrapping unit (6) of said wrapping machine (1).
The method of forming a group of products on a wrapping machine (1), the method comprising the steps of feeding a succession of said products (2) to an input (17) of a screw device (12) located along a bottom portion (13) of a vertical channel (8);
- detecting the presence of a complete said group (3) at an output (18) of said screw device (12) and in a top portion (14) of said channel (8);
- extracting the complete said group (3) from a top end (11) of said channel (8);
- and feeding the extracted complete said group (3) to a wrapping unit (6) of said wrapping machine (1) by means of a push device (29) moving back and forth in a direction (30) crosswise to said channel (8).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.