Patent GB-814874-A (GB)
Title: Improvements relating to the profile testing of travelling bodies
IPC: B07C5/06
Filed: 1956-01-06
Abstract: 814,874. Endless conveyers for delivering goods at predetermined positions. FREEMAN, A. March 22, 1957 [Jan. 6, 1956; March 20, 1956], Nos. 548/56 and 8661/56. Class 78 (1). In a conveyer system of the kind in which goods can be despatched along an endless conveyer in association with selector devices which are set to correspond with the setting of one of a number of reader mechanisms disposed at particular stations along the conveyers to deliver the goods at predetermined stations, each reader mechanism has means for magnetically attracting a passing selector device into sensing position relatively to the reader mechanism. As shown, the selector devices 8 are as described in Specification 814,873, having two slidable selector elements 9, 10 mounted in a housing 8 and adjustable by wheels 11, 12. Each selector housing 8 is carried on a stem 7 from which the goods are suspended. The stem 7 has an enlargement at its upper end which may be engaged in a socket formed in a coupling piece 6 depending from a conveyer chain 1, and being retained in this socket by a pivoted catch 4 urged by a spring 5. Each reader mechanism includes a pair of discs 15, 16 loosely mounted on a shaft 17 secured between top and bottom plates 28, 29 of the reader housing. These discs are spaced by a sleeve 20 secured on the shaft 17 so that they lie in the planes of the elements 9, 10, respectively, of a passing selector device. The discs are held resiliently against opposite ends of the sleeve 20 by collars 19 acted on by springs 17. Each disc includes a finger 23 disposed in the path of the corresponding selector element, and a.sector-shaped part 21 provided with a notch 22. As an index device passes the reader mechanism the discs are rotated by respective amounts according to the degree of projection of each of the selector elements 9, 10. The notches 22 on the two discs are positioned such that upon passage of an appropriately set index device the rotation of the discs will bring the notches in the two discs into alignment with a strip 24 depending from a plate 25 pivoted by a sleeve 26 on a shaft 27 fixed between the plates 28 and 29. A pair of vertically spaced studs 31 disposed in a web 30 integral with the sleeve 26 are in contact with spring-loaded plungers 32 of a pair of microswitches 33 connected in series, whereby the plate 24 is urged towards the discs. On passage of an index device set for that particular station the strip 24 will therefore enter the aligned notches 22 and operate -the micro-switches which operate a relay 34 controlling discharge mechanism for the goods. Each selector device is guided accurately past the reader mechanism by the engagement of a pair of steel rollers 13, 14 on the stem 7 with the edges of T-shaped magnetized plates 47, 48. A magnetic circuit is completed through the plates 47, 48, the rollers 13, 14 and the stem 7 by a steel pillar 50 bolted between the plates 47, 48. The leading and trailing ends of the plates 47, 48 are tapered to give a gradually reducing magnetic flux towards these ends, the leading ends also being inclined away from the paths of the rollers 13, 14 to receive these rollers smoothly. Just prior to passing the sensing position the roller 13 engages the inclined end 46 of a forwardly projecting extension 45 of the plate 25, pivoting the latter so as to move the strip 24 clear of the discs 15, 16. Just prior to this a roller 38 on the stem 7 engages a roller on the end of an arm 36 carried outside the reader housing on the end of a shaft 35 journalled in the plates 28 and 29, rotating this shaft. Ar arm 39 carried on the shaft 35 within the reader housing engages a roller 40 on the extension 45 of plate 25 to pivot the latter whereby strip 24 is moved to release the discs, and simultaneously a spring wire frame 43 carried by the shaft 35 is urged against the discs to rotate them from a previous setting, if any, to the initial position shown where they engage a stop 44. As the stem 7 moves further along the conveyer, the discs are rotated by engagement of the selector elements with the fingers 23 while the strip 24 is held out of the way by the roller 13 engaging the plate 25. When plate 25 is released from the roller 13 the strip 24 is free to enter the notches 22, if aligned therewith, as described above. Specification 801,179 also is referred to.