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US 6,607,066 B1Granted
Conveyor
AssigneeCrisplant A/S
InventorsPer Andersen, Steen Kibsgaard, Hans Stensgard-Bay, Flemming Frederiksen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A conveyor for transporting articles of mixed sizes, such as luggage and/or mail has a plurality of interconnected conveyor units, each comprising an article supporting member, such as a tray or a conveyor belt or any other suitable supporting member. The article supporting members of the conveyor units may be used individually for transporting articles, and two or more consecutive conveyor units may in an aligned state to form a common article support surface for transporting articles larger than the individual article supporting member.
Claims15
A conveyor for transporting articles, the conveyor comprising
- a stationary guide track having curved track sections,
- at least one loading station for loading articles onto article supporting surfaces of the conveyor,
- at least one discharge station for receiving articles from article supporting surfaces of the conveyor, and
- a plurality of interconnected conveyor units which are mutually pivotally coupled, each conveyor unit comprising
- a frame part,
- an article supporting member mounted on and supported vertically by the frame part, the article supporting member having an article supporting surface, and
- means for discharging articles from said article supporting member at a predetermined discharge station,
- at least one of the plurality of conveyor units belonging to a first group of conveyor units, each of the conveyor units belonging to the first group of conveyor units comprising
- first means for aligning the conveyor unit with another immediately adjacent conveyor unit belonging to a second group of conveyor units,
- each of the conveyor units belonging to the second group of conveyor units comprising
- second means for aligning the conveyor unit with another immediately adjacent conveyor unit belonging to the first group of conveyor units,
- said first aligning means and said second aligning means being designed so that when a first conveyor unit belonging to the first group of conveyor units and an adjacent second conveyor unit belonging to the second group of conveyor units are aligned with each other by means of their respective first aligning means and second aligning means, the article supporting member of the first conveyor unit and the article supporting member of the second conveyor unit are substantially aligned in a projection on a horizontal plane so as to form a substantially common article supporting surface during all mutual pivotally movements in a horizontal plane of said first conveyor unit and said second conveyor unit.
9 more elements
A conveyor comprising
- a first and a second conveyor unit,
- a stationary guide track having curved track sections,
- at least one loading station for loading articles onto article supporting surfaces of the conveyor, and
- at least one discharge station for receiving articles from article supporting surfaces of the conveyor,
- each of the conveyor units comprising
- a frame part,
- an article supporting member mounted on the frame part, the article supporting member having an article supporting surface, and
- means for discharging articles from said article supporting member at a predetermined discharge station of the conveyor,
- the first conveyor unit being adjacent to the second conveyor unit and comprising
- first means for aligning the first conveyor unit with the second conveyor unit,
- the second conveyor unit comprising
- second means for aligning the second conveyor unit with the first conveyor unit,
- said first aligning means and said second aligning means being designed so that when the first conveyor unit and the second conveyor unit are aligned with each other by their respective first aligning means and second aligning means, the article supporting member of the first conveyor unit and the article supporting member of the second conveyor unit are substantially aligned in a projection on a horizontal plane so as to form a substantially common article supporting surface during all mutual pivotally movements in a horizontal plane of said first conveyor unit and said second conveyor unit.
10 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.