Patent GB-631333-A (GB)
Title: Improved automatic machine for the capping of bottles or the like
IPC: B67B3/02
Filed: 1946-12-11
Abstract: 631,333. Capping bottles. CHELLE, P. L. Dec. 11, 1946, No. 36624. Convention date, Sept. 13, 1939. [Class 125(ii)] An automatic bottle-capping machine of the type adapted to seal a cap on a bottle or the like by lateral pressure exerted against the neck of the bottle by pressure members, with or without the interposal of a rubber ring, comprises a capping head secured to a movable slide and adapted to rest freely under its own weight alone upon a bottle during the sealing operation. As shown, Fig. 2, a bottle 34 carrying a loose cap pauses beneath the capping head 32 mounted on a slide 40. Head 32 is lowered by the action of cam 6 until it rests under its own weight on the bottle neck with a spring-pressed abutment 58, Fig. 3, contacting the cap top and a rubber ring 44 surrounding the cap skirt. Movement of a cam 21, Fig. 2, then displaces a push rod 29 horizontally to cause an arm 31 of head 32, Fig. 3, to rock so that cam surfaces 54 give a downward movement to a pin 55 and thence through member 248 and push rods 49, 249, 349 to a bush 47, descent of which presses hinged plates 45 inwardly to compress ring 44 against the bottle neck; excessive compression is prevented by yielding of a spring 38 in rod 29, Fig. 2. The machine may be adapted as shown in Figs. 5, 8 to punch the cap from a strip 207 of aluminium, tin or paper prior to sealing. Strip feed rollers 93, 88, 94 and 84, 85, Fig. 5, are geared to a pinion 81 driven intermittently by a ratchet-and-pawl drive from an arm 62 reciprocated via members 61, 64, 66, 67 by means of a cam 23, rollers 84, 94 being braked for positive immobilisation during the return stroke of arm 62; slideway 61 enables the drive to arm 62 to take place whatever the vertical position of head 32. Head 32 is now slidably mounted within a sheath 142 fixed to slide 40. The lower end of head 32 comprises a die 143, Fig. 8, coacting with a fixed die block 123, and the strip passes between the dies through openings 241. A blank is punched prior to engagement of head 32 with the bottle neck by a downward movement of head 32 relative to sheath 142, caused by the action of a further cam 22 (not shown), this movement also serving to mark the strip in advance of the die with an impressed stamp. The cone 42 used for centering bottles of a fixed diameter may be replaced by spring-actuated clamping jaws which are positively opened when a bottle is removed, by the action of a cam 7 (not shown). The punching movement of head 32, the cap-sealing movement of arm 31, and the opening of said centering jaws are arranged to take place independently of the level of head 32. Cams 6, 7, 21, 22, 23 are secured to a bushing 59 mounted on and driven from a drive shaft 2. The strip-feeding, punching and capping movements are stopped in the absence of a bottle 34 on conveyor 33 by the 'inward movement of a pivoted feeler lever 125, Fig. 2, which causes disengagement of a ratchet-and-pawl clutch connecting bushing 59 to shaft 2. Instead of being stationary, the capping head may be arranged to reciprocate parallel to a continuouslymoving conveyor so as to synchronise with the conveyor during a bottle centering and capping operation.