Patent GB-858772-A (GB)
Title: Apparatus for conveying customers' purchases from a store
IPC: A47F10/00
Filed: 1957-12-17
Abstract: 858,772. Shop conveyers. GRONDONA STORE SYSTEMS Inc. Dec. 17, 1957 [Dec. 18, 1956], No. 39174/57. Class 116 [Also in Group XXX] Apparatus for carrying customers' purchases from a store to a wrapping station in a car park outside comprises counters 61, Fig. 1, where the goods are checked and put into baskets 32 which are removed by lifts 31 and a conveyer 383 to the end 344 of a wrapping counter 267 where the goods are collected by the customer, the empty baskets returning on a lift 373 and conveyer 382. Thus, the goods are brought in a wheeled basket to a tunnel 64 under the counter 61 where they are taken from an aperture 66, checked and transferred into a basket 32 which is placed on a lift platform 33, Fig. 6b, and located by a roller 82 and rib 98 engaging cruciform recesses on the basket bottom. Locking and unlocking lift cage doors. On closing the door 72 (Fig. 6b), a switch 73 starts a reversible motor 71 and causes the platform 33 to rise. At the same time the door is locked by an electrically-operated latch 74. The rising basket successively engages trip means 104 to stop any oncoming basket on the conveyer ropes 41, 42 and 91 to cause the ropes 41, 42 to be separated by cranks 126, 127 operated by motors 88, 89 sufficiently for the basket rim to pass between them. The ropes then converge again to support the basket and the platform 33 descends until it trips a switch which unlocks the door 72, allowing it to rise under the action of springs 77, and shuts off the motor 71. The electrical circuit is in Fig. 27 (not shown). At the end of the conveyer ropes 41, 42 the basket moves on to and down a roller conveyer 265, Fig. 22, and from there on to a U-shaped lift platform 266 which engages the rim and lowers the basket by gravity on to a roller-way 286 forming part of the counter 267, Figs. 1 and 22. Stop means are provided to prevent a basket arriving in the absence of the platform 266, which is lifted by a motor 291 actuated by the platform striking switches 292, 293. The circuit for this is in Fig. 28 (not shown). After removal and wrapping of its contents the basket is placed for engagement by cleats 329, Fig. 17, extending between spaced pairs of continuously-driven chains 271, then transferred on to return ropes 52 by faster-moving cleats 332 on chains 331. The chains 271, 331 and the ropes 41, 42, 52 are driven by a motor 341. The empty baskets are lowered to the counters 61 by elevators 164, Fig. 5, under the control of the checking clerks. Manual raising of the lowermost basket 32 closes a switch 172 to drive the elevator motor 171 until the next descending basket opens the switch 172 again. Absence of a basket at the top of the elevator is detected by an arm 188 which places stop means 202 in the path of the next basket. Contact of a basket with the stop 202 places a stop 208 in the path of any following basket and causes means 163 similar to those previously described to separate the ropes 52 sufficiently to drop the basket on to the elevator 164. A feeler 187 which engages the side rim of the basket prevents the stop 202 operating if a basket is in an unsuitable position. The electrical circuit for this elevator is in Fig. 26 (not shown). The counter 267 may include a basket-washing recess 386, Fig. 1 and Fig. 19 (not shown).