Acoustic bottle tester and conveyor therefor
AssigneeCoors Brewing Company
InventorPhilip J. Lucas
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A vacuum conveyor for transporting articles across a space wherein the conveyor belt for the vacuum conveyor has a plurality of equally spaced apart fluid passageways formed therein and wherein a one way valve is installed in each fluid passageway so that when one of the fluid passageways is exposed to a vacuum source to hold an object on the conveyor belt the object will be held on the conveyor belt until a sufficient force is applied to the object to separate the object from the conveyor belt.
Claims20
A vacuum conveyor comprising:
- a housing having a first end portion, a central portion and a second end portion;
- said housing connected to a vacuum forming source to form a vacuum in at least said first end portion of said housing;
- a conveyor belt mounted for movement around portions of said housing;
- said conveyor belt having a plurality of spaced apart fluid passageways formed therein;
- only said first end portion of said housing having at least one aperture formed therein;
- said conveyor belt being mounted so that said plurality of spaced apart fluid passageways pass over said at least one aperture so that a hollow object having an opening formed therein and in contact with said conveyor belt and surrounding at least one of said plurality of spaced apart fluid passageways will have a vacuum formed therein and be held in contact with said conveyor belt by a vacuum force;
- and
- apparatus for maintaining said vacuum force on said hollow object after said hollow object has moved past said at least one aperture until a sufficient force is applied to said hollow object to separate said hollow object from said conveyor belt.
A conveyor for exposing bottles to a bottle testing apparatus for testing bottles for flaws of a predetermined magnitude and wherein said bottle testing apparatus breaks any bottle having a flaw of the predetermined magnitude comprising:
- a housing having a length that is greater than its width;
- said housing connected to a vacuum forming source to form a vacuum in said housing;
- a conveyor belt having an upper reach and a lower reach and journalled for movement around said housing in a lengthwise direction;
- said conveyor belt having a plurality of spaced apart fluid passageways formed therein;
- said lower reach being exposed to said vacuum in said housing so that a plurality of bottles in a spaced apart relationship move with said lower reach;
- and
- a bottle testing apparatus located so that each one of said plurality of bottles moving with said lower reach is exposed to said bottle testing apparatus so that when a flawed bottle beaks all the fragments thereof will fall into a fragment collection system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.