Device for conveying, to a final station, loose textile articles fed selectively by at least two feed stations

Abstract: A device for conveying, to a final station, loose textile articles fed selectively by at least two feed stations, comprising, at each feed station and at the final station, fixed guides (4,7) comprising pairs of conveyor belts (5,8), and, at each point of convergence of said guides, a movable structure enabling the textile articles to be conveyed from the feed stations to the final station.

Description: This invention relates to a device for conveying textile articles, for example men's socks, from at least two feed stations to a final station, said stations being for example sock forming machines and, respectively, a sock finishing machine and in particular a machine for sewing the toe of the socks and for turning them inside out. The socks are usually brought to the finishing machine in groups contained in bags or in carriage-mounted boxes. The socks are then inserted one by one along a slot in a usual guide element provided in known finishing machines and comprising pairs of mutually facing belts arranged to move the socks along the slot so as to bring the socks up to the various finishing members of the machine. The aforedescribed production system requires the presence of control personnel both for the sock forming machines and for the finishing machine. The system also involves relatively lengthy idle times in that the socks have firstly to be collected, then conveyed to the finishing machine in groups, and manually inserted into the guide element thereof. US-A-5,205,393 discloses main conveyors and branch-off conveyor belts, a pivotal module being provided in the (or each) main conveyor as well as at the beginning of the branch-off conveyor, and each module comprising two lateral conveyor belts perpendicular to an underlying horizontal conveyor belt. In order to obtain a continuous straight conveying path the lateral belts of the module associated with conveyor have the same length, and in order to avoid the gap in the lateral guidance of the goods the pivotal module associated with the branch-off conveyor its lateral conveyor belts have different lengths. An object of the present invention is to provide a device for automatically conveying textile articles from several feed stations to a final station, which both enables the personnel assigned to the stations to be reduced and optimized and accelerates the feed of textile articles to the final station. A further object is to provide a device of the aforesaid type which can be easily adapted to existing stations, is of simple and reliable operation and is of low cost. These and further objects which will be apparent to an expert of the art are attained by a device in accordance with the accompanying claims. The present invention will be more apparent from the accompanying drawings, which are provided by way of non-limiting example and in which: Figure 1 shows a scheme of the device according to the invention; Figure 2 is a schematic plan view of a part thereof indicated by the arrow Z in Figure 1; Figure 3 is a simplified plan view of the part shown in Figure 2, but in a different position and with certain parts omitted; Figure 4 is a schematic plan view of a detail of the part shown in Figure 2. Said figures show a device for conveying textile articles (not shown) from at least two feed stations 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D (four are shown in Figure 1) to a final station 1 (Figure 1). The textile articles can be for example men's socks, in which case the feed stations are men's sock forming machines, and the final station is a conventional sock finishing machine, for example of the type for sewing its toe and then turning it inside out. At each feed station 2A-D there is provided a first fixed guide 3 comprising a longitudinal guide slot 4 for the socks (not shown), and a first pair of mutually facing conveyor belts 5 for conveying the socks along the slot 4, the sock advancement trajectory being indicated by the arrow T1. Advantageously the exit ends 5A of the belts 5 are mutually offset, as shown in Figure 3. The belts 5 are positioned below the surface 3A of the guide and are driven and supported in a manner conventional to the expert of the art. The socks leaving the feed station 2A are inserted manually into the slot 4 such that a portion of their free elastic edge projects upperly from the guide 3, the remaining part of the sock remaining hanging below the surface 3A of the guide. At the final station 1 (Figure 1) there is provided a second fixed guide 6 comprising a longitudinal guide slot 7 for the socks and a second pair of mutually facing conveyor belts 8 for conveying the socks along the slot 7. Their advancement trajectory is indicated by T2. Advantageously, the entry ends 8A of the belts 8 are mutually offset (Figure 3). The belts 8 are positioned below the surface 6A of the guide and are driven and supported in conventional manner to the expert of the art. By virtue of the belts 8, the socks are conveyed automatically to the final station 1 where, by means of conventional belts and a guide element similar to those already described, they are moved up to the various actuator members for the processes to which the socks are to be subjected. As shown in Figures 2 and 3, the slot 4 in the guide 3 of the feed station 2A communicates with the slot 7 in the guide 6 of the final station at a convergence point P1. Into the point P1 there also converges a slot 9 of a supplementary guide 10 along which, as described hereinafter, socks originating from other feed stations can travel, driven by a supplementary pair of conveyor belts 11. The exit ends 11A of the supplementary belts are advantageously mutually offset (as shown in Figure 3). At said convergence point P1 there is provided a movable structure 12 (Figures 2 and 4) comprising a third pair of mutually facing conveyor belts 13 (not shown in Figure 3), having their exit end U substantially aligned with and partly overlying the entry end I of the second pair of belts 8. More specifically, as shown in Figure 4, the belts 13 are each driven and supported by three pairs of rollers 14A, B, C provided on the upper side of the surfaces 6A, 3A and 10A (Figure 2) of the respective guides 6, 3 and 10. The pairs of rollers 14A and B are secured to the surface 6A in a manner conventional to the expert of the art, in a fixed position such that a first portion of the belts 13 is parallel and close to the slot 7 and is able to drag the socks originating from the belts 5 or 11 towards the belts 8. The other pair of rollers 14C is movable between two positions (A in Figure 2, B in Figure 4) such that the entry end H of the belts 13 can align with one or other of the exit ends of the first pair of belts 5 or of the supplementary belts 11. Each of the rollers 14C is secured in conventional manner to one end of a plate 15, these being hinged coaxially to the rollers 14B and connected together by a spring 16. To one end of the plates 15 there is also secured a member 17, which in the illustrated example is a hydraulic or pneumatic cylinder-piston unit arranged to move both the plates, and hence the rollers 14C secured to them, selectively into the two said positions A and B (Figures 2, 3). The end 17A of the member 17 is secured to a fixed support 18. Usual arms 19, connected together by a spring 20, are also hinged to the support 18 to maintain the belts 13 under tension. The guide 10 (Figure 2) and the pair of belts 11 can communicate directly with the exit of a second feed station (2D in Figure 1) in a manner similar to that described for the guide 3 or, as schematically represented in Figure 1, they can be connected to the exit of intermediate movable structures 12A. In this manner a system can be created for bringing to a final station 1 textile articles originating from n feed stations (2A-D). The device according to the invention comprises a control unit for controlling the movement of the pairs of belts 5, 8, 13 and 11 and of the members 17 for driving the movable structures 12, 12A. The control unit is advantageously of the microprocessor type and will not be described hereinafter as it is conventional to the expert of the art. The control unit is connected to usual sensors 23, 22 (Figure 2), for example of the photoelectric cell type, able to sense, respectively, the position of the movable structures 12, 12A, and when a textile article leaving one of the feed stations reaches a predetermined position along the guide slots 4. On the basis of the signals originating from said sensors, the control unit powers the usual motor units (not shown but conventional) for driving the various pairs of conveyor belts of the device. It should be noted that all the belts of the device are driven at the same velocity and that, for driving them, a single drive unit can be used connected by usual transmission members to the drive rollers of the belts. More specifically, if for example a certain number of textile articles are to be conveyed automatically from the feed station 2B (Figure 1) to the final station 1, the control unit firstly drives the pair of belts 5 relative to the guide 3 associated with the station 2B. The articles inserted manually along the relative slot 4 of said guide 3 are driven by the belts 5 along the slot as far as a predetermined point. When this point is reached, the control unit checks via the sensor 22 whether the relative movable structure is positioned such as to be able to receive the textile articles (position A, Figure 2). If not, the control unit blocks the advancement of the articles along the guide 3 until the structure has been moved into the correct position. If it is in the correct position, the control unit also checks whether the movable structure 12 downstream of that relative to the station 2B is in the correct position (B, Figure 4) for conveying the articles towards the final station, and only if this is so are the articles conveyed directly from the station 2B to the final station 1. If this is not so, the articles are halted in a waiting position along the guide 3 until the station 12 downstream is also in the correct position for discharging the articles. Advantageously, the articles are discharged from the feed stations to the final stations in groups. The velocity of the conveyor belts is for example one or two metres per minute. Finally, it should be noted that the described embodiment is provided by way of example, and that numerous modifications are possible all falling within the same inventive concept. In particular, the device could be made to operate in the opposite manner to that described, ie to direct the textile articles from the final station 1 to at least two feed stations 2A-D.

Claims: A device for conveying textile articles from at least two feed stations to a final station, characterised in that at each feed station (2A, B, C, D) there is provided a first fixed guide (3) comprising a first pair of mutually facing conveyor belts (5) for gripping said articles and dragging them along said first guide, at said final station (1) there being provided a second fixed guide (6) comprising a second pair of conveying belts (8) similar to the first, for dragging said articles originating from said feed stations (2A-D) towards said final station along said second guide, at least one of said first fixed guides (3) communicating with said second fixed guide (6) at a point of convergence (P1), at said point of convergence (P) there being provided a movable structure (12) comprising a third pair of conveyor belts (13) similar to the first and having their exit ends (U) substantially aligned with the entry ends (I) of said second pair of belts (8), members (17) being provided for selectively moving said movable structure between at least two positions (A, B) in which the entry end (H) of said third pair of belts (13) is substantially aligned with the exit end of one of said first pairs of belts (5), control members being provided for selectively halting said first pairs of belts (5) if, on arrival of a textile article in a predetermined position along one of said first guides (3), the entry end (H) of said third pair of belts (13) is not aligned with the end of said first pair of belts (5). A device as claimed in claim 1, characterised by comprising a plurality of said feed stations (2A-D) communicating with the second pair of belts (8) of the final station (1) via a respective movable structure (12, 12A) and a possible pair of supplementary belts (11) and their relative guide (10), control members being provided to maintain one pair of third belts (13) aligned with a pair of first belts (5) and the remaining pairs of third belts (13) aligned with the second pair of belts (8) and with the possible adjacent pairs of supplementary belts (11). A device as claimed in claims 1 and 2, characterised in that the first fixed guide (3), the second fixed guide (6) and the possible supplementary guide (10) are coplanar, the pairs of conveyor belts (5, 8, 11) of said guides being provided on the opposite side of the plane in which said guides lie to the side with which the third pair of belts (13) of the movable structure (12) is associated. A device as claimed in claims 1 and 2, characterised by comprising sensors (22, 23) for sensing the position of each movable structure (12) and whether a textile article is positioned in a predetermined position along one of said first guides (3). A device as claimed in claims 1 and 2, characterised in that the direction of rotation of said pairs of belts (5, 8, 13, 11) is controlled such as to transfer the textile articles from the feed stations (2A-D) to the final station (1) or vice versa.

Inventors: SAVIO FERRUCCIO, SAVIO, FERRUCCIO
Applicants: SAVIO MACCHINE SPA, SAVIO MACCHINE S.P.A.
Application year: 1995
Main classification: D05B33
IPC codes: D05B33, B65H29, B65G47