Patent ID: 6719519
Filing Date: 2004-04-13
Classification: B65B,B65H

Abstract:
Apparatus for unpacking boxes of carriers, which includes:a fixed frame, a full-box-conveyor, an empty-box-conveyor, and a magazine; wherein the full-box-conveyor holds a quantity of full boxes, the boxes containing respective batches of the carriers; a bucket, having front, back, left, right, top, and bottom panels; wherein some of the panels of the bucket are open/closable panels; wherein the front panel is one of the open/closable panels of the bucket, and the apparatus includes an operable front-motor which, when operated, opens and closes the front panel of the bucket; an operable box-motor, which, when operated, drives one of the boxes occupying a senior position on the full-box-conveyor, with its batch of carriers contained therein, off the full-box-conveyor, and into the bucket, through the front panel of the bucket; a bucket-cradle, in which the bucket is guided for pivoting movement about a bucket-axis in the bucket-cradle; an operable pivot-motor, which, when operated, rotates the bucket about the bucket-axis relative to the bucket-cradle; the bucket-cradle includes motion-constraints, which are so structured that the bucket cannot move relative to the bucket-cradle in any mode other than pivoting about the said bucket-axis; an operable box-extractor, which, when operated, extracts the box from the bucket, leaving the batch of carriers remaining in the bucket, and deposits the extracted box on the empty-box-conveyor; a bucket-elevator, which guides the bucket-cradle for bodily up/down motion of the bucket-cradle, relative to the frame of the apparatus; and an operable elevator-motor, which, when operated, drives the bucket-cradle for up/down motion relative to the frame of the apparatus.