Patent GB-953807-A (GB)
Title: Methods and machine for handling eggs
IPC: B65B23/06
Filed: 1961-09-26
Abstract: 953,807. Unpacking eggs; endless conveyers. FMC CORPORATION. Sept. 26, 1961 [Oct. 31, 1960], No. 34381/61. Headings B8A and B8C. An apparatus for transferring eggs vertically disposed in a filler F to an egg separator conveyer adapted to support the eggs horizontally for candling &c. comprises a feeder conveyer for a loaded filler and a pocketed egg separator conveyer, where between said conveyers is a filler transfer device comprising means for picking up a loaded filler from said feeder conveyer, inverting it, and moving it to a position with the eggs disposed above said separator conveyer, and means in said transfer device for depositing eggs in the pockets of said separator conveyer. Crates 11 each containing two columns of fillers F each holding thirty eggs E with their pointed ends downwards are placed on the storage conveyers 10 and slide on to an inclined shelf 26 under the action of a foot pedal 19. An operator inverts the crates, having opened them and removes them from around the fillers, which now stand on a table 27.The fillers are then placed on a feeder conveyer C held above the shelf 26 by legs 31 between which extends a top plate 32 bearing a guide rib 33. They are advanced by pushers 36 on intermittently-driven endless chains 34 on to a filler pick-up member P which is part of the transfer mechanism T. An egg cup carrier Q lying over the separator conveyer S then pivots to a position overlying the filler on the member P, whereupon it begins to return, together with the member P and the filler, to the separator conveyer, the member P and carrier Q both being mounted on a shaft 51 operatively connected to a main cam-shaft 58. As the carrier Q approaches the conveyer S, the cups, where each cup consists of a fixed and a movable half, e.g. s, t, respectively, in Fig. 22, arranged in lines of five, are laterally spread, since the eggs are moved from a vertical to a horizontal disposition in the transfer thereof, after the member P has begun to move back to its original position. After the latter member has passed the vertical position, the filler ejector arms are raised by a lever 222, operatively connected to cam-shaft 58, so that they cast the empty filler on to the conveyer A, whence they fall by gravity down a bin B. The spreading of the cups is effected by means of a rack-and-pinion mechanism, Figs. 15, 25, where racks 131-134, 131a-134a are slidably mounted in cross-beams 136, 136a, respectively, which latter are in the form of inverted channels closed on their undersides by coverplates, and join the arms 43, 43a of the carrier Q. The cup halves are mounted on blocks on the racks as indicated in Fig. 25, some, e.g. w, being fixed, whilst others, e.g. the pair t, of which one half is fixed and the other pivoted, are slidable along the racks, each pivotal cup half co-operating with a fixed half on another rack. The pinions 126, 127, 129,126a, 127a, 129a of this mechanism, which are mounted, with pinions [28, 128a on a shaft 124 oscillated through a predetermined angle in each direction by the drive mechanism, each have a blank section on their periphery to engage corresponding keeper notches in their respective racks, so that the racks travel different distances in their reciprocatory motion, laterally spreading the cups as they do so (see Fig. 37), the eggs dropping into place between the rollers 46 as the pivoted cup halves open fully. The rollers 46 are made to rotate as the conveyer S advances by frictional engagement with stationary rails, not shown. As the carrier Q starts moving back toward the conveyer C, the lever 222 is retracted and a spring causes the arms 236 of the filler ejector R to return against the carrier Q. The eggs then pass washing and drying stations W, D, Fig. 1A, and a candling station X where an operator inspects the eggs as they are intermittently advanced and rotated by the conveyer S, which is formed in two sections S1 and S2. The former delivers eggs three at a time into a single file conveyer 7, and the latter similarly delivers eggs to another single file conveyer Z, the eggs in each case then being conducted to individual weighing scales indicated generally at V. The conveyers Y, Z are driven from the main drive-shaft 246, and a Geneva drive G intermittently drives chains 257, 257a on which are mounted tiltable egg carrying buckets 258, 258a, respectively, which deposit eggs in a mechanism in the weighing scale unit.