Abstract:
A feeding, singulating, or orienting device which includes a vibratory feeder bowl having a central receiving section and at least two tracks radiating outwardly from the receiving section. The feeder bowl can be convex, concave, or flat in vertical cross-section depending on the articles to be separated or oriented.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     Applicant claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e)(1) of Provisional Applications Serial Nos. 60/166,752 and 60/166,754, both filed Nov. 22, 1999, both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates to a device for separating articles, counting articles, or the like. More specifically, this invention relates to a device using an apparatus comprising a vibratory feeder bowl and a plurality of outwardly radiating tracks for separating articles, counting articles, or the like. 
     Vibratory feeder bowls for separating articles, counting articles, or the like are known. These feeder bowls comprise a central receiving section in the form of a cone or the like and a single ramp-like track along which the articles flow to a discharge. As can be seen from FIG. 15, the typical prior art apparatus comprises a vibratory feeder bowl  44  having a central receiving section  46  and a spiral track  48 . The bowl is vibrated by a base unit  50 . The track  48  can take a number of configurations and types of tooling depending on the nature of the articles to be separated, their size, their shape, and/or other characteristics. Typical bowl and track configurations are well-known in the art as illustrated, for example, in the “Parts Feeding Equipment” catalog of Automation Devices, Inc., of Fairview, Pa., U.S.A., or the “Syntron® Parts Handling Equipment” catalog of FMC Corporation, Material Handling Division, of Homer City, Pa., U.S.A. Well-known drive units are also shown, for example, in those two catalogs, both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The vibration applied by the drive unit  50 , causes the articles being oriented and/or separated to move outwardly to the periphery of the bowl  44 . The articles to be separated continue to move outwardly and are guided by wall  52  to follow the spiral path of the ramp  48  until they reach the end where they drop off into a counter, weigher, or assembly machine, or any other device for further processing, such as packaging, etc. From the counter or weigher, the articles then move to further processing such as packaging. Counting, weighing, and other such devices are well-known in the art. 
     There is a disadvantage to the prior art devices in that they are slow and inefficient. A plurality of such devices must be used, each with its own vibration-producing mechanism. 
     It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a vibratory feeder bowl apparatus for feeding, singulating, and/or orienting articles which is free of the above-mentioned and other such disadvantages. 
     The present invention provides a feeder bowl comprising a central receiving section and a plurality of tracks radiating outwardly from the receiving section. The feeder bowl itself is the same as conventional feeder bowls or can be a feeder bowl according to another aspect of the instant invention. It can be convex, concave, or flat in vertical cross-section depending on the articles to be separated or oriented. The choice of bowl configuration would be apparent to those skilled in the art. For instance, pills or tablets to be counted would be fed, oriented, or separated by using a convex bowl; irregularly shaped articles to be fed, oriented, or separated would be processed using a concave bowl; and spherical objects like marbles would be separated for counting using an essentially flat bowl. It should be noted that “convex” and “concave” bowls are, in actuality, essentially conical. The convex bowl resembles the outside surface of a cone while the concave bowl resembles the inside surface of a cone. As will be discussed later, when a concave bowl is used, it is preferable that it have spiral grooves radiating outwardly from the center. The bowl receives bulk product from bucket conveyors, bin vibratory elevators, and/or other similar delivery means. 
     While the conventional bowl uses a single spiral ramp-like track, the instant invention is an apparatus which comprises a plurality of outlets radiating outwardly from the periphery of the feeder bowl. The number of outlets can be as few as two with no upper limit except as dictated by physical constrains. It is possible that as many as about 50 could be used depending on bowl size and/or diameter, and track size. Specifically, the device has multiple tracks spiraling out from a center cone. The tracks all have tooling designed to shed bulk loose product down to single file feed, exiting product in controlled flow from the bowl around the entire periphery at the end of each track. 
     The bowl passes the excess overflow via an integral catch pan that provides a path for the bulk excess product to exit the bowl feeder from underneath the multiple tracks for a return run through the multi-track feeder. 
     At each exit, an optical parts detector, laser, light beam, load cell, or similar type device, with a product diverter gate, and an accumulator with discharge gates, is positioned to count or weigh the loose product into the desired batch count or weight size. These detectors may combine their counts for large batch sizes, or each be individually programmed to count each total batch or any combination of these optical batches and weighed batches satisfying their requested batch size. These devices are all well-known in the art and need no further description. 
     In another aspect of the instant invention, a new bowl configuration is provided for bulk product distribution that can deliver product uniformly and/or oriented in a controlled fashion out its entire periphery overflowing out of itself evenly and smoothly around a 360 degree circle. This bowl is designed to receive bulk product from bucket conveyors, bin vibratory elevators, and/or other similar delivery means. This device by nature of its design shape will collect the product in the bottom center of a cone, bowl or other similar shaped device. The bowl has spiral vanes, tracks, divertors, or other similar devices affixed to its interior surfaces that will guide and encourage the product to climb out of and spread itself evenly and uniformly out of the periphery of the device. 
     As with the first aspect of the instant invention, the bowl is driven by a conventional vibrator-electromagnetic pneumatic hydraulic and/or motor driven to impart motion to the product distribution device which in turn drives the product around up and out of the device. 
     Old technology has been to use a vibrating dome or cone with even distribution highly dependent on uniform delivery to the center of the cone resulting in fluctuations in delivery period. Entangled and not completely free flowing product like French fries, screws, wrapped candy, often result in unevenly distributed output flow out the periphery of the dome with some batch infeeds located around the distributor starving for produce while others may have too much bulk product. 
     Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a plan view of a bowl feeder according to the invention; 
     FIG. 2 is a side elevational view of the bowl feeder of FIG. 1; 
     FIG. 3 is a perspective view from the top and front of the bowl feeder of FIG. 1; 
     FIG. 4 is a cross-section of the bowl feeder taken along the line  4 — 4  of FIG. 1; 
     FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a bowl feeder showing a feeder cone and showing only a single track for illustrative clarity; 
     FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a bowl feeder showing a feeder cone for feeding product from the bottom and showing only a single track for illustrative clarity; 
     FIG. 7 is an elevational view of a bowl feeder showing another form of feeder cone and showing only a single track for illustrative clarity; 
     FIG. 8 is a perspective view of a bowl feeder similar to FIG. 3; 
     FIG. 9 is a plan view of another embodiment of a bowl feeder according to the invention; 
     FIG. 10 is a cross-section of the bowl feeder taken along the line  10 — 10  of FIG. 9; 
     FIG. 11 is a perspective view of the bowl feeder of FIG. 9; 
     FIG. 12 is a plan view of the inventive bowl according the second aspect of the invention; 
     FIG. 13 is an elevational view of the bowl of FIG. 12; 
     FIG. 14 is a perspective view of the bowl of FIG. 12; and 
     FIG. 15 is a perspective view of a conventional apparatus. 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     Referring to FIGS. 1-4, the bowl feeder of the present invention is generally designated by the numeral  10 . The bowl feeder  10  comprises a central receiving section  12  and a plurality of tracks  14  spiraling out from the central receiving section. The complete apparatus is vibrated using a known vibrating drive  15 . Depending on the nature of the items to be counted or separated, the device may alternatively be rotated instead of vibrated to cause the items to flow outwardly by centrifugal force rather than by the vibrations. 
     The central receiving section  12  can be in the form of an inverted cone as shown in FIGS. 1-4. Alternatively, it could be in the form of a cone-shaped structure having walls which taper outwardly and upwardly as shown in FIG. 5 and, optionally, with a flat upstanding central structure  16  to direct the flow of items up and out of the bowl into the tracks. Another alternative is a generally conical central portion  18  having upward spiral passages  20  leading to the tracks  14  as shown in FIG. 6 (see, also, FIGS.  12 - 14 ). Yet another variation uses an inverted conical structure  22  within a conical bin as shown in FIG.  7 . These various structures are chosen by those skilled in the art depending on the nature of the items to be counted and/or separated. 
     Track width adjustors or air jets  24  may be provided to force the items moving along the track to assume a single file, with excess items then falling off and being collected in a tray  26  to be cycled back to the feed. 
     Any suitable device for counting, sorting, combining, weighing, separating, or the like can be affixed to the ends of the tracks as shown schematically at  28 . Different such devices can be used on different tracks. The device of this invention may be used to separate any items which are provided in bulk and are to be separately packaged or counted for packaging. Such items include pills, electronic parts, mechanical parts, julienne-cut potatoes for frying, hardware, toy pieces, etc. 
     Turning to FIG. 9, there is shown a bowl feeder generally designated by the numeral  30 . The bowl feeder  30  comprises a central receiving section  12  and six tracks  32 , spiraling out from the central receiving section. As mentioned earlier, there could be as few as two tracks and as many as about 50 tracks. The complete apparatus is vibrated using a known vibrating drive (not shown). 
     The central receiving section  12  is preferably in the form of an inverted cone but could take another configuration depending on the articles to be processed. The width of the tracks may be adjusted using known tooling to force the items moving along the track to assume a single file, or oriented single file, with excess items then falling off and being collected in a tray  26  to be cycled back to the feed. The term “tooling” is commonly used in the trade to refer to walls, guides, diverters, baffles, rails, and other such fabricated structures which are added to the bowl for a particular purpose, all as well-known in the art. 
     As shown in FIG. 9, the tracks  32  are evenly spaced around the periphery of the bowl. Each of the tracks  32  is arcuate following a spiral path, i.e., a path of ever changing radius, or a circular path. When the paths are circular, the centers of the circles lie on a circle which is inside of, and coaxial with, the bowl  12 . All the arcuate tracks  32  which radiate out from the central receiving section  12  are geometrically the same and are circumscribed in circle  34 . 
     While a rotating feeder bowl moves the product outwardly by centrifugal force, the vibratory feeder bounces the product up and outwardly in a circle. The product then reaches wall  36  (FIG.  11 ). Wall  36  has a plurality of openings  38  through which the product passes onto tracks  32 . The whole unit vibrates and the product spreads out and marches down the tracks  32 . Then the product moves to chutes to a bottling machine or the like, or to a common funnel, or to a counter. 
     The inventive bowl  40  has spiral vanes, tracks, divertors, or other similar devices, all generally designated by the numeral  42 , affixed to its interior surfaces that will guide and encourage the product to climb out of and spread itself evenly and uniformly out of the periphery of the device. The spiral tracks and/or vanes are ever growing in size as they climb up and out of the dome. Using the increasing thickness of the track with elevation to meter the amount of product carried and delivered out of the cone (the more bulk is in the cone, the higher the pile) the more product will be delivered out of the cone. Spiral tracks and/or walls may be used to align long products such as French fries so as to allow an accumulator to redirect oriented product resulting in more compact bags (packages) and less product damage. 
     The bowls, tracks, and other components of the instant invention may be made of any material such as aluminum or stainless steel depending on the nature of the articles to be handled, as is well-known in the art. 
     The foregoing disclosure has been set forth merely to illustrate the invention and is not intended to be limiting. Since modifications of the disclosed embodiments incorporating the spirit and substance of the invention may occur to persons skilled in the art, the invention should be construed to include everything within the scope of the appended claims and equivalents thereof.