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US 6,854,587 B2Granted
Method and apparatus for packaging tamales
AssigneeHormel Foods Corporation
InventorsGary A. Handel, Jeffrey J. Morrison
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A tamale loading apparatus (10) includes a converging mechanism (61) and diverter wheels (83, 84) to position tamales (200) on a belt (24). The belt is run at a speed to fly the tamales (200) into a can (300) wherein the tamales are automatically loaded and it is no longer necessary to load the tamales (200) by hand into the cans (300).
Claims5
An apparatus for positioning frangible objects on a moving conveyor, from a first position to a second position, comprising:
- a) a conveyor having a conveyor belt for carrying the frangible objects, the conveyor belt having a centerline;
- b) a first rotatable wheel mounted above the conveyor belt, the wheel having a plurality of pushing paddles attached to the wheel at spaced intervals, the wheel having an axis which is at an angle to the centerline of the conveyor belt;
- and
- c) a stop member positioned laterally to the frangible objects when in the first position, wherein rotation of the wheel over the moving conveyor causes the paddles to contact the frangible objects at the first position and move the frangible objects laterally as the frangible objects continue travelling on the conveyor to contact the stop member, thereby moving the frangible objects to the second position.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.