Conveyor autoset layboy machine
AssigneeMartin Family Trust
InventorsMerrill D. Martin, Daniel J. Talken
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A layboy machine for conveying and selectively varying the lateral spacing between sheets such as sheets of corrugated board. The machine is provided with controlled tugs which automatically, precisely and quickly reposition the conveyors in the machine for different sizes of outputs from a cutter in a corrugator line and different numbers of sheets in each output.
Claims16
In a conveyor autoset layboy machine for receiving a stream of rows of adjacent sheets having side edges and selectively displacing said sheets laterally one from another while conveying said sheets longitudinally of said layboy machine including:
- a frame, conveying means on said frame having a receiving end and a delivery end;
- said conveying means including a plurality of conveyors spaced side by side to carry said sheets longitudinally from said receiving end to said delivery end;
- means to drive said conveyors;
- the improvement being a computer controller means for controlling the changing of location and the lateral spacing between each of said conveyors and for controlling the changing of the longitudinal direction of each of said conveyors thereby changing the lateral spacing between said sheets in each row comprising;
- a. locating means locating and signaling the first location of each of said conveyors;
- b. computer controller means for receiving said signal from said locating means and noting said first location of each of said conveyors, for receiving a set of instructions, and for controlling the movement of each of said conveyors to selected second locations;
- and
- c. tug means operably connected to said computer controller means for moving each of said conveyors to said selected second locations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.