Patent GB-1428064-A (GB)
Title: Packing bottles in layers in packing cases
IPC: B65B21/02
Filed: 1974-03-11
Abstract: 1428064 Packing bottles in layers in cases CHANDON HANDELS GmbH 11 March 1974 [12 March 1973] 10781/74 Heading B8C An installation for packing bottles wrapped in thin, for example, tissue paper and lying side-by-side and top-to-bottom in at least two superimposed rows or layers in packing cases, comprises a case conveyer 9 operable to move open-topped packing cases in succession, in pre-determined spaced relationship, transporter means 5 operable to move bottles lying on their sides in side-by-side, top-to-bottom, relationship with the bodies of alternate bottles nested between the necks of adjoining bottles, a machine 4 operable to overturn upright bottles and dispose them in said side-by-side relationship on the transporter means 5, an upright bottle conveyer 1 operable to deliver upright bottles in two paths 2, 3 to opposite sides of the bottle overturning machine 4, and a packing case filling head 6 operable to remove from the transporting device 5 a predetermined number of successive recumbent bottles and to deposit the bottles, as a layer, in a packing case 10 on the packing case conveyer 9. As shown, the upright bottles on the conveyer 1 are divided, to pass along the paths 2, 3, to the machine 4, which turns the bottles to lie side-by-side and top-tobottom, and in tangential contact at their connection zones between their bodies and necks, on cradles 15 carried by chains 13 on the conveyer 5. The filling head 6, which is adapted to pick up bottles, e.g. champagne bottles wrapped in thin paper, from the conveyer 5, and place a layer of bottles in each of two adjacent cases 10, Fig. 1, located on the conveyer 10 while the forward motions, F 2 , F 3 , of the conveyers 5, 9 are temporarily arrested, comprises a cross-member 18, Figs. 1, 4, which is transversely movable by a jack 19, on guides 17, 17 carried by a gantry 16, between two positions which are situated respectively over the cradles 15 and over the open cases 10 on the conveyer 9. A plate 22, situated at each side of the cross member 18, Fig. 4, is connected to the piston rod of a jack which is mounted on the member 18 between a pair of guide columns 21, 21 connected to the plate 22 and slidably mounted in bearings 20, 20. Each plate 22, carries, on its underside, three grippers 23 which are arranged in isosceles triangular relationship, Fig. 5, to correspond with the necks of three side-by-side bottles lying on the cradles 15. The grippers 23 each comprise a pair of jaws 25 which are mounted upon a pivot 24 carried by lugs depending from the plate 22 each jaw 25 having an upwardly extending operating arm 26 located between the pistons 32, 32 of a pair of, oppositely-acting, pneumatic jacks 29, 30 for opening and closing the gripper jaws. The spacing of the plates 22 corresponds to that of a pair of cases 10 on the conveyer 9. A machine 7 supplies cardboard blanks to a setting-up machine 8 which includes a vertically operating punch which shapes each blank to form a case 10 and deposits the latter in one of a plurality of equidistant frames of the conveyer 9 which finally delivers filled cases to a discharge unit 11.