Patent GB-1143211-A (GB)
Title: Bottle sorting machine and method
IPC: B07C5/34
Filed: 1966-02-25
Abstract: 1,143,211. Bottle sorting apparatus. OWENS-ILLINOIS Inc. Feb.25, 1966 [Feb. 25, 1965], No.8318/66. Heading G1A. In an apparatus for sorting bottles the bottles are fed one by one to a first sorting station where their light transmissivity is detected and if the transmissivity is within a given range the bottle is fed away from that station in one direction while the remaining bottles are grasped by a suction device and moved in a different direction to a second sorting station. Again some characteristic of the bottle is inspected photo-electrically, e.g. the presence or absence of a label in a particular position on the bottle, and bottles of one type are released from the vacuum holding device and fed away in one direction while the remaining bottles are fed, still attached to the suction device to further sorting stations. Figs. and 2 show an embodiment of the apparatus in which bottles are fed along a conveyer 10, into the pockets of a pocketed wheel 14 on the sorting machine which advances the bottles serially to the sorting station A shown in detail in Fig. 3. At station A the light from source 40, Fig. 3, is collimated and passed through the bottle, aperture 43, filter 44 and focused by lens 45 on the photo-cell 46. The station sorts green bottles from clear flint glass bottles by arranging filter 44 to only pass radiation of a different wavelength from that passed by green glass. A bottle C at the sorting station operates micro-switch 49 to close a relay 51 for a predetermined period of time. If the bottle is not of clear flint glass photo-cell 46 is not energized and amplifier 47 produces a signal which operates a relay 48 to complete a circuit via relay 51 for the solenoid 52. Operation of solenoid 52 causes, via shaft 53, the depression of valve spool 25 to connect the passage in the suction device 21 and rod 22 to a vacuum chamber 19 in the hub 13, Figs .1 and 2, of the pocketed wheel. The green glass bottle is then held in the wheel pocket and transported thereby to the sorting station B. Clear glass bottles however do not provide illumination of the photo-cell, therefore solenoid 52 is not operated, the bottles are not held by the suction device, and they proceed straight along conveyer 30. At sorting station B a pair of light sources 60 provide beams intersecting a right angle at a height at which one bottle to be sorted has a label which is such that it obstructs one or other of the light beams which causes a signal in the amplifier chain connected to photo-cell 63 which is detected and used to operate a solenoid in a similar way to the arrangement at station A. The solenoid causes operation of the appropriate valve spool in the opposite direction to that at station A to cause the vacuum to be released from the suction holding device so that the bottle with the label in the appropriate place will proceed on the conveyer underlying this station while the remaining bottles will be carried on, on the pocketed wheel. When the remaining bottles reach the final conveyer a cam mechanism resets all the remaining valve spools to release the vacuum from the holding devices so that the remaining bottles are fed away on the final conveyer.