Apparatus for removing rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry from the receptacles of a rotary conveyor

Abstract

Plain or filter cigarettes are expelled from selected or successive axially parallel peripheral flutes of a rotary drum-shaped conveyor by a rotary shaft-like valving element which is adjacent the internal surface of the cylindrical wall of the conveyor. The flutes of the conveyor communicate with first radial orifices which are connected to a suction chamber to attract the cigarettes to the surfaces of their flutes. When a cigarette is to be expelled from its flute, ports which are provided in the valving element connect a second set of orifices, communicating with the flute from which a cigarette is to be expelled at an ejecting or transferring station, with a source of compressed air the pressure of which is being built up ahead of the actual ejection and which is permitted to escape from the ports as the ejecting step is completed. The ports can be connected with the second orifices of selected flutes, with a pressure generating device or with the atmosphere by axial bores and arcuate grooves of the valving element.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.