Device for loading articles onto an unstacking magazine and a loading method using this device

The device essentially comprises a conveyor, on which bins for storing articles stacked flat are loaded, and a coupling deck between the conveyor and the magazine, the coupling deck being hinged about its end adjoining the magazine and having firstly a tipping trough for tipping over the bin coming off the conveyor about the leading bottom edge of the bin, and secondly lateral retaining fins for retaining the bin tipped over onto the deck while the deck is being tilted. The invention is applicable to installations for unstacking postal articles.

The present invention relates to loading unstacking magazines in 
installations for unstacking flat articles. 
Such flat articles may be constituted in particular by postal items, such 
as letters of various possible formats, postcards, journals, etc. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
In this type of installation, the unstacking magazine is conventionally 
equipped with members for separating articles individually, said members 
being mounted at a front end of the magazine and being commonly referred 
to as an "unstacking head". The magazine is also equipped with retaining 
means for retaining the articles in one or more stacks, said retaining 
means being coupled to drive means to move the articles forwards along the 
magazine towards its head. 
By way of example, the unstacking head may be of the type having a suction 
cup movably mounted to rock so as to come into contact with and take hold 
of the facing end article in the stack, and to reciprocate in translation 
so as to take the held article away from the magazine and release it, and 
then to return to the front of the stack. This head is adapted to the 
characteristics of the articles to enable them to be taken one-by-one 
without being damaged. Its positioning and/or its rocking may be 
controlled by detecting the format and/or disposition of the successive 
end articles to be removed. 
The magazine feeds the head as and when articles are removed. The retaining 
means for retaining the articles are of the type having panels coupled to 
the drive means. When unstacking relatively uniform articles, these panels 
remain fixed to the drive means which are constituted by an endless 
conveyor or chain. The panels are driven in an active position from the 
rear of the magazine to its front, to move the articles forwards, and the 
panels are retracted in front of the head from where they are recycled in 
an inactive position back to the rear of the magazine. Instead of using 
such panels spread out in this way around a closed circuit, it is 
preferable to use removable panels on the magazine, in particular when the 
articles are very varied. 
French Patent Application 89 13605 filed in the name of the Applicant 
describes such a magazine having removable panels. These panels are 
installed by hand and they are coupled to the drive means in a loading 
zone on the rear portion of the magazine, from where they move the 
articles loaded onto this zone forwards up to the head. They separate from 
the drive means in front of the head and are guided to and received in a 
panel storage zone provided on one side of the front end portion of the 
magazine. 
In both of these types of magazine, and in particular in magazines having 
removable panels, the articles are loaded onto the rear zone of the 
magazine by hand. This hand loading of articles is not very convenient. It 
suffers from certain difficulties, especially when the articles are varied 
and relatively slippery, and/or when the preceding stack has already 
advanced a considerable distance along the magazine and is relatively far 
away from the supply of articles, which supply is generally in the form of 
a bin on a work surface at the rear end of the magazine. Among the 
difficulties and problems encountered, the following should be mentioned 
in particular: 
it is difficult to keep the stack together between being removed from the 
supply and being deposited behind the panel retaining the previous stack 
and moving it forwards; and 
building up a new stack by removing small batches from the supply requires 
the batches that have already been loaded to be held substantially 
vertical with one hand, while further batches are being removed with the 
other hand. 
Furthermore, such difficult manipulation is not very compatible with the 
time restrictions imposed on an operator in charge of feeding a plurality 
of magazines and checking that they are operating correctly. 
The object of the present invention is to avoid these problems by loading 
the articles directly and quickly from storage bins onto the unstacking 
magazine, to facilitate the work of the operator, to improve the comfort 
and quality of the work, and to organize operator time better. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The invention provides a device for loading articles from storage bins in 
which the articles are stacked flat onto a "rear" end portion of an 
unstacking magazine, said device comprising a conveyor substantially level 
with but not adjoining the rear end portion of the magazine and receiving 
the bins of articles, and further comprising a substantially horizontal 
coupling deck between the conveyor and the rear end portion of the 
magazine, a first end of said coupling deck being hinged on a shaft to 
pivot substantially about the rear end of the magazine, said coupling deck 
having firstly, close to its opposite second end, a tipping trough for 
tipping the bins onto the deck, in which trough the leading bottom edge of 
the bin coming off the conveyor is engaged, and secondly, at a distance 
from the trough substantially equal to the height of the bins, a pair of 
lateral retaining fins for retaining the bin tipped onto the deck about 
its bottom edge. 
The fins may have inwardly-directed flanges preventing the bin from sliding 
on the deck when tilted. 
The device may further include an actuator for actuating the deck and 
controlled by detecting the presence of a bin tipped onto the deck. 
The invention also provides a method of loading articles by this device, 
said method consisting in: 
loading said bins filled with articles onto the conveyor; 
ensuring that the end portion of the unstacking magazine is free of 
articles over a length not less than the height of an entire stack of 
articles in a bin; and under these conditions, 
moving a first bin on the conveyor forwards onto said deck, until the 
leading bottom edge of said first bin falls into said trough; 
tipping the bin over onto the deck about its leading bottom edge engaged in 
the trough; and 
retaining the stack of articles in the tipped-over bin, while the deck 
tilts, guiding the stack while it slides by gravity out of the bin and 
along the tilted deck, and bringing the stack into position against the 
stack previously loaded on the magazine.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
The device of the invention is given overall reference 1 in the figure; the 
unstacking magazine, or rather only its rear end portion as loaded by the 
device 1, is designated by overall reference 2. 
This magazine lies outside the scope of the present invention. The magazine 
is of an existing type known per se and preferably the magazine described 
in the above-mentioned Application filed by the Applicant. A brief 
description of this magazine is included below. 
The magazine includes a substantially horizontal platform 3 with a side 
wall 4 running along its far side. The magazine has panels 5 for retaining 
stacks of articles and moving them forwards along the platform, these 
panels being stood on end and leaning slightly backwards. Said panels 5 
are coupled to drive means comprising a worm 6 rotated by a motor and 
stepdown gear box unit 7 having a brake-clutch. The unstacking magazine is 
further equipped with means for separating articles individually, these 
means constituting an "unstacking head" mounted at the front end portion 
of the magazine. 
The panels are preferably removable and individually installed by the 
operator. To this end, each of them has a bottom finger inserted between 
the platform 3 and a bottom guide plate 8 extending under the near side 
edge of the platform, said finger meshing with the thread of the worm 6. 
When the panels have reached the end of their stroke along the platform 
and are in the front end portion thereof, they are detached from the worm 
and they are removed to a panel storing zone provided to one side of said 
front end portion. The panels are thus made available for being used as 
and when new stacks of articles are loaded onto the rear end portion of 
the magazine. 
The arrow 5A represents the advance of a stack of articles 9 moved forwards 
along the magazine by the panel 5 at the back of this stack. 
The device 1 of the invention loads a complete new stack directly onto the 
unstacking magazine 2. Said device is installed level with the platform 3 
and is coupled to the rear end portion of the platform. 
The device operates using bins 10 having handhold means 10B, which are 
constituted by slots in this case, but which could be handles. Each of 
these bins contains a stack of articles stacked flat, which stack is 
loaded as a whole onto the magazine 2. 
This device includes a conveyor 11 for the bins 10 and a coupling deck 12 
between the conveyor 11 and the platform 3, said coupling deck tipping out 
the contents of successive bins 10 onto the platform. 
The conveyor 11 has free rollers 11A. The coupling deck 12 is substantially 
horizontal. The deck is hinged on a shaft 14 to pivot substantially about 
the rear end of the platform 3 of the magazine. The deck is tilted about 
this shaft 14 by an actuator 15, the deck thus being moved to a sloping 
position above the platform in order to transfer the contents of the bin 
carried by the deck onto the platform 3. 
The coupling deck 12 is almost plane, except close to its end adjacent to 
the conveyor 11, where it has a rounded recess or tipping trough 16 for 
tipping the bin about its bottom edge which is engaged in said trough when 
the bin comes off the conveyor. The deck is equipped with two lateral fins 
17, face to face and projecting above the deck. These fins are intended 
for centering and holding the bin between them when it is tipped onto the 
deck 12. The front edge 17A of each fin is situated at a distance from the 
trough 16 corresponding to the height of the bins, and it has a small 
inwardly directed flange for holding the bin without obstructing articles 
contained therein. Furthermore, the far fin on the deck may be extended or 
associated with a far wall (not shown) extending to the end of the deck 
that is coupled to the magazine, which extension is interrupted before 
reaching a lip 19 and in no way prevents the deck 12 from being tilted and 
the lip 19 from being deformed. 
A contact 18 protruding slightly above the deck 12 detects the presence of 
a bin tipped onto the deck, thereby energizing the actuator 15 which tilts 
the deck carrying the bin. The distance from the trough to this contact is 
shorter than the height of the bins. 
A flexible lip 19 fixed at one end on the deck 12 end which is coupled to 
the magazine overlies a margin of the platform 3 thereby preventing 
articles of stack 9' from dropping between deck 12 and the end of the 
magazine 2. 
The deck 12 is also flanked by a lateral skirt 20 which extends thereunder 
on both sides. 
This skirt is mounted on the hinge shaft 14 moves with the deck. The skirt 
has the shape of a sector of a circle occupying an angle of approximately 
90.degree., this sector being delimited at one edge by the deck 12. The 
rounded edge 20A of the skirt enables the skirt to pass freely in front of 
the end of the conveyor 11. Each side of the moving skirt 20 overlies a 
sidewall 21 having the shape of part of the moving skirt, but remaining 
fixed against the end of the magazine, and referred to herein as the 
"fixed skirt". This fixed skirt serves to hide the tilting mechanism of 
the deck and cooperates with the moving skirt to provide protection. 
Operation of the device is described below, 10A designating the arrow 
showing that a bin is tipped onto the deck, 10' designating the tipped bin 
as shown by dotted lines, 12A designating the arrow showing that the deck 
is tilted to raise the bin, and 12' designating the deck tilted into its 
high position. 
The operator places a series of full bins 10 on the conveyor 11 thereby 
providing a supply of articles for loading. The operator monitors the 
overall installation to see that it is operating correctly, and in 
particular monitors the feed requirements of the unstacking magazine, so 
as to cause a new stack to be loaded behind the rearmost stack 9 and 
retaining panel 5 on the magazine 2. This loading may be effected as soon 
as the empty end portion is long enough to receive the entire stack 
contained in the first bin. 
To load the magazine, the operator moves the first bin at the end of the 
conveyor forwards over the trough 16 in the deck by using the left hand 
and the handhold 10B. The leading bottom edge then falls into the trough, 
thereby beginning to tip over the bin. The operator causes this tipping 
motion to continue, still using the left hand to position the bin so that 
it lies on its side and is centered between the fins 17. The stack of 
articles, which were initially stacked flat and one on top of another, is 
now standing on end inside the tipped-over bin and is held back by the 
operator using the other hand. 
Once the bin has been tipped over, it actuates the contact 18. The contact 
then causes the deck 12 to be tilted by the actuator 15 following the 
arrow 12A, to raise the bin 10' which is retained by the flanges 17A of 
the fins 17. 
Once the bin has been raised in this way, the stack of articles (designated 
by 9') in the bin comes out of the bin, while being held up by the right 
hand of the operator, who guides the stack letting it slide by gravity 
along the deck 12' towards the platform 3. The operator can use both hands 
to guide the stack 9' onto the platform 3, one hand in front of the stack 
and one hand behind it, and can then move it up against the previously 
loaded stack 9 using the left hand only. 
The newly-loaded stack is then retained by a new panel positioned behind 
it. 
Advantageously, a retarder is associated with the actuator 15 to enable the 
deck to return automatically to its horizontal standby position. Once the 
deck has returned to its horizontal position, the operator removes the 
empty bin from the deck at a suitable moment. 
The article loading device of the invention facilitates the work of the 
operator considerably and enables the stack contained in the bin to be 
kept together and loaded directly onto the magazine as a whole. The device 
enables the unstacking magazine to be loaded more quickly and the worktime 
of the operator to be better organized. 
This invention is described above with reference to the embodiment shown in 
the drawing. Naturally, various details may be modified by a person 
skilled in the art, without going beyond the scope of the invention.