Paper product dispensing system
AssigneeSCA Tissue North America LLC
InventorsJohn S. Formon, Craig Billman, Jeffrey J. Brickl, John W. Grosz, Wayne Hansen, Matthew T. Woerpel, Edward A. Raleigh
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A dispensing system that removes individual napkins from a stack of interfolded napkins in a manner that allows the number of napkins dispensed to be easily counted and controlled so that an appropriate number of napkins are dispensed. The counted napkins are collected in an easily manageable form and presented to a user.
Claims17
A dispenser for dispensing a predetermined number of paper products, comprising:
- a paper product holder for holding a supply of paper products;
- two pairs of movable grasping fingers that grab the paper products one-at-a-time and withdraw said paper products completely from said holder, at least one finger of each of said two pairs of gripping fingers being movable from a first position, where respective fingers of each pair of gripping fingers are spaced apart from each other, to a second position, where respective fingers of each pair of gripping fingers are closer to each other so as to grab one of the paper products, and said gripping fingers each include a magnet at a tip thereof that maintain said respective fingers in the second position;
- a collection tray for collecting the paper products withdrawn from said holder by said grasping fingers;
- and a folder that receives the paper products withdrawn from the holder by the grasping fingers and refolds said paper products.
A device for dispensing a predetermined amount of napkins from a stack of interfolded napkins, said device comprising:
- a napkin holder loaded with a plurality of interfolded napkins, said holder having a downwardly facing napkin dispense opening;
- grippers two pairs of gripping fingers downstream of said opening that grip a leading edge of each successive one of said plurality of napkins, each finger of said two pairs of gripping fingers having a front side and a back side and being movable on a respective endless loop from a first position so that each respective pair of gripping fingers has a back side facing each other, to a second position so that a front side of each said respective pair of gripping fingers face each other, in said second position, each said respective pair of fingers move toward each other and are configured to grab one of the napkins;
- a pair of rollers downstream of said opening, said pair of rollers forming a nip therebetween, each said napkin is fed by said pair of grippers two pairs of gripping fingers to said nip and is folded upon itself to form a fold by said pair of rollers;
- and
- a collection tray adjacent to said pair of rollers, folded napkins exiting the nip are collected in said collection tray.
A method for dispensing a predetermined amount of napkins from a stack of interfolded napkins, said method comprising:
- withdrawing each of said napkins one-at-a-time from a dispenser opening by gripping leading edges in two pairs of magnetic gripping fingers;
- folding a dispensed napkin upon itself;
- and
- collecting a predetermined amount of folded napkins in a collection tray.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.