Patent GB-1353949-A (GB)
Title: Classification of manufactured articles
IPC: B07C5/36
Filed: 1971-04-19
Abstract: 1353949 Controlling cigarette making-machines; rejecting faulty cigarettes INDUSTRIAL NUCLEONICS CORP 19 April 1971 [23 March 1970] 23432/71 Heading A2C [Also in G4] A plurality of articles, e.g. cigarettes, to be classified into either of two categories, e.g. "reject" and "accept", according to at least one sensed characteristic of each article, are moved successively along at least one prescribed path past at least one sensing station and later past an operating station, the sensing station(s) responding to the characteristic(s) of the article(s) thereat to provide information signal(s) used to provide first category signal(s) when the article is in a first one of the categories, e.g. "reject", a first counter driven by timing pulses counting the article-interval movements of the articles along the path(s), an article-interval being the distance between successive articles, and programmed addressing means providing for each station in turn an address signal representative of the number of article-intervals from a common reference position to the station, this address signal being subtracted from the counter output, the result being used to address a memory, the category signal being written into the addressed location (in the case of a sensing station) or the location being read out to control the operating station (in the case of the operating station). There is a memory location (a single bit) for each article between the earliest sensing station and the operating station. The first-category signals placed in a given location by different sensing stations are effectively ORed together in the location. The address signals for the various stations come from a diode matrix driven by a second counter, and they are subtracted from the output of the first counter using complemented addition. Such a sequence of address signals is supplied for each article-interval movement. In part of the apparatus, two different paths are used by different articles, and the number of article-intervals, from the reference position, of each station downstream of where a single path is returned to, differs depending on which of the two paths was taken; for each of these stations, two address signals are used alternately since odd-numbered articles use one path and even-numbered use the other path. A third counter, at the memory output, counts the total number of rejects. Details of cigarette-making apparatus and the stations Tobacco is fed onto a moving conveyor belt, trimmed by a rotating equalizing knife, and wrapped at a rod former with paper from a reel, the paper being printed with brand name between reel and rod former. The continuous rod passes through a first sensing station using a beta gauge to measure the average density over each cigarette length and over each of a plurality of short segments of it. This provides servo-control of the equalizing knife (as well as a reject category signal for out-of-limit density). A second sensing station then checks the position and imprint density of the brand names. A cutter cuts the rod into cigarette lengths. A third sensing station checks for metal particles. The cigarettes are moved two at a time transversely off their path onto a pair of further paths, a filter being inserted between the two cigarettes and joined to them. A fourth sensing station performs a leak test, then the filter is cut in half to separate the two cigarettes (the printing was done so that it is adjacent the filter in both cases.) In one of the two paths, each cigarette is rotated through 180, then the two paths join together into one, with interleaving of the two streams of cigarettes. A fifth sensing station detects loose ends. Finally the operating station ejects (blows) reject cigarettes from the path. If any of the sensing stations detects out-of-limit values of the characteristic it is measuring, it produces a "reject" category signal used as above. A circuit following the memory permits non-reject cigarettes to be blown from the path instead, if desired. The apparatus may be operated in test modes, e.g. to eject every cigarette irrespective of the category signals.