Patent GB-1283419-A (GB)
Title: An article-carrier bucket
IPC: B07C5/18
Filed: 1970-06-30
Abstract: 1283419 Discharging articles from endless conveyers HI-SPEED CHECKWEIGHER CO Inc 30 June 1970 [10 July 1969] 34916/71 Divided out of 1283418 Heading B8A [Also in Division G1] Articles 12 to be sorted according to weight are conveyed in buckets 10 having openable bottoms, all the buckets being of substantially equal weight, the buckets passing singly and in succession to a weighing station 16 where the weights of the article(s) carried by each bucket are determined and caused to set a mechanical memory device 90, the buckets passing from the weighing station 16 to a classifying station 17 comprising a series of discharge devices spacedapart along the path of travel and controlled by the memory device 90 to open the bottom of each bucket to dump the article(s) therein at the discharge point appropriate to the weight of the article in that bucket. Buckets 10 on an endless conveyer 50 are loaded with articles 12 at a loading station 14 and carried to a turntable 18 which transfers them to an endless conveyer 60. A timer 65 (Fig. 6) driven via a Geneva mechanism 68, 70 releases buckets at regular intervals to be carried between aligning conveyers 74, 75 to a weighing platform 80. As each bucket passes a photo-electric sensor 77 the preceding bucket and contents on the platform is weighed before being pushed on to a sorting conveyer 150, 151 by the following bucket. Conveyer 150, 151 comprises parallel chains which support the buckets 10 by means of angle brackets (37, 38) (Fig. 3, not shown) on the bucket sides, the bucket bottoms being held closed by fixed rails 161 and movable rails 162a-162h, the latter being associated with transverse conveyers 180a-180h for articles 12 of different weights so that when a rail 162 is retracted, as at 162b, the bucket thereover is unloaded, the bottom remaining open until it reaches a closing ramp 170 at the end of the sorting conveyer. A turntable 19 transfers the empty buckets back to the conveyer 50 where they may be cleansed and dried at a station 58 before reaching the loading station 14. The memory device 90 (see also Specification 1,283,420 in Division G4) comprises nine axial rows of plungers on a drum 100, each plunger being movable between an active and a retracted position. The drum is rotated stepwise 40 degrees each time the timer 65 releases a bucket, a cam 126 on the Geneva drive shaft 69 causing a solenoid valve 124 to energize a ram 122 to bring a cancelling bar 110 on to the row in a cancel/reset station after each step. The weighing device, which includes a linearly variable differential transformer controlling a set of optical meters, actuates a selected one of solenoid valves 97a-97h according to the weight of the bucket and contents on the platform 80 to cause a corresponding one of rams 98a-98h to move a plunger in the row at the reset station to its active position. Switches 111-118 controlling actuation of rams 164a-h for moving the rails 162a-162h and clutches 186a-186h in the drives of conveyers 180a-180h are located at eight further stations round the drum so that as a bucket carrying an article of a particular weight passes over a conveyer 180a-180h corresponding to that weight, the appropriate one of switches 111-118 is tripped to unload the bucket, its contents falling on to a transverse conveyer 180a-180h. A single motor 27 may drive all the main conveyers and the timer 65 and the turntables.