Device for pressing empty containers together and method therefor
OwnerHermann Schwellinginventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for pressing together empty containers, especially drinks bottles or cans made of plastic, especially PET or tinplate, comprises a housing with a fill opening and an outlet, a cutting and pressing disposed in the housing, and a device for driving and controlling the cutting and pressing unit. The cutting and pressing unit contains at least two rollers whose axes of rotation are arranged at a distance from each other. Each roller has at least two sections. Adjacent sections along the same roller have different diameters. When the rollers are mounted, the sections having the larger diameter are offset relative to each other and the peripheral surfaces thereof partially overlap with each other, forming cutting disks whose peripheral surfaces have at least one groove.
Claims23
A device for pressing together empty plastic containers, comprising:
- a housing having a fill-in opening and exit opening;
- a cutting and pressing unit disposed in the housing, said cutting and pressing unit containing at least two rollers that are disposed at a distance from one another with reference to their axes of rotation and a plurality of strippers;
- and
- means for driving and controlling the cutting and pressing unit,
- wherein each of the rollers, when viewed in a direction along the axis of rotation, has two types of segments, and wherein the segments that alternately follow one another along said axis possess different outside diameters from each other, and wherein when the rollers are installed, said segments having a larger outside diameter in each roller are formed by cutting disks, the cutting disks are offset relative to one another and are disposed with their circumferential surfaces partially overlapping one another, each of the circumferential surfaces possess at least one groove,
- wherein each of the segments having a smaller outside diameter is formed by a plurality of pressure disks, said segment having the smaller outside diameter possess several recesses that are directed radially inward, reaching to a core diameter of the roller, to form the pressure disks which are each spaced apart from one another by an amount of a width of the recess,
- so that containers being passed to said segments are perforated in partial regions by the segments having the larger diameter and at the same time, regions adjacent the perforated partial regions are pressed together by the segments having the smaller diameter which are disposed axially next to the segment having the larger diameter so that the containers leave the exit opening of the device compacted into a panel shape, and wherein the strippers are disposed between the cutting and pressure disks.
A method for pressing together empty containers, said method using a device comprising:
- a housing having a fill-in opening and exit opening;
- a cutting and pressing unit disposed in the housing, said cutting and pressing unit containing at least two rollers that are disposed at a distance from one another with reference to their axes of rotation and a plurality of strippers;
- and
- means for driving and controlling the cutting and pressing unit,
- wherein each of the rollers, when viewed in a direction along the axis of rotation, has at least two segments, and wherein the segments that alternately follow one another along said axis possess different outside diameters from each other, and wherein when the rollers are installed, said segments having a larger outside diameter in each roller are formed by cutting disks, the cutting disks are offset relative to one another and are disposed with their circumferential surfaces partially overlapping one another, each of the circumferential surfaces possess at least one groove, each of the segments having a smaller outside diameter is formed by a plurality of pressure disks, the segment having the smaller outside diameter have several recesses to form the pressure disks, the pressure disks are spaced apart from one another by an amount of a width of the recess, and the strippers are disposed between the cutting and pressure disks,
- the method comprising the following steps:
- pressing wall segments of a container against one another with the cutting and pressing unit;
- cutting the pressed wall segments with the cutting and pressing unit;
- and
- hooking the wall segments into one another during cutting of the wall segments in the cutting and pressing unit, wherein the containers are perforated in partial regions by the segments having the larger diameter and at the same time, regions adjacent the perforated partial regions are pressed together by the segments having the smaller diameter which are disposed axially next to the segment having the larger diameter so that the containers leave the exit opening of the device compacted into a panel shape.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.