Patent GB-1169449-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to Apparatus for Assembling Parallelepipedic Articles, such as Bricks, into Groups.
Inventor: BASON JAMES MUNRO
IPC: B65G57/26
Filed: 1967-03-16
Abstract: 1,169,449. Stacking bricks etc.; grippers for bricks. BASON & SONS Ltd. 8 April, 1968 [16 March, 1967], No. 12409/67. Headings B8C and B8H. In a machine for forming an open-work stack of bricks or the like, alternate rows of bricks fed into the machine are inverted and deposited on the next row (e.g. to protect the sanded faces of rustic bricks) and these double rows form the layers of a stack. Brick separating means operate before or after this inversion, and in the latter case may be incorporated into a stacking unit. Bricks 18, Fig. 1, enter a brick-separating means 10 on a conveyer 23 where, in one embodiment, they are laterally separated before being pushed on to a conveyer 30 which conveys the separated rows to an inverting means 31. This inverting means lifts a row of bricks, rotates it through 180 degrees and lowers it on to the next row to form a superimposed pair of rows which pass on to a conveyer 46. When this conveyer has received a group of four such pairs, they pass on to a further conveyer 47 from which they are lifted by a rotatable head 49 and deposited on a stack, each group at 90 degrees to the preceding group. The brick separating means 10 consists of upper and lower opposed gripper jaws 14, Fig. 3, each set being joined by bolts providing a lostmotion connection so that they can be bunched together by piston-and-cylinder means 20 adjacent a conveyer 23 to receive a row of bricks. The leading brick actuates a switch at 25 causing the grippers 14 to grip the bricks individually and then to separate to a position determined by the bolts. The first two sets of gripper jaws remain unseparated so that the two bricks act as stops for further bricks arriving on the conveyer. The separated remaining bricks are pushed as a row on to a conveyer 30 which carries the bricks to beneath the inverting device 31. Their presence is detected photoelectrically causing the conveyer to stop and a pick-up head 39, Fig. 6, to be lowered to grip the bricks. The gripping mechanism consists of tubes (not shown) along both the long inner sides of a rectangular frame forming the head 39, which tubes inflate to push pressure-plates (not shown) against the bricks over which the frame has descended. The frame is rotatable in a vertically reciprocable head 35 on trunnion 41 centrally of its ends. The trunnions carrying friction wheels 42. The head 39 ascends inverting the bricks via the wheels 42 which engage rails 43 and are caused by them to rotate through 180 degrees. The rails 43 are hinged at their upper ends and can be swung clear of the wheels 42 during the following descent of the head 39, which deposits the inverted row on a next row. These double rows are grouped on a conveyer 46 and the group conveyed to another conveyer 47. A further pick-up head 49 having end gripper jaws 51, Figs. 9 and 10, and corresponding central plates 50 transfers the group of bricks to a stock. The end jaws 51, Figs. 9 and 10, are piston-and-cylinder operated and mounted on plates 52 one for each row of bricks. In one embodiment, these grippers operate as the separating means. For this purpose, brackets 73, from which the plates 52 depend, are slidable on rods 74 and connected by bolts (75), Fig. 11 (not shown), providing a lostmotion connection so the end-plate of each set are pushed apart by pneumatic rams 76 and consequently drag the remaining plates apart, separating them. The head 49 can be rotated to deposit successive pairs of layers at 90 degrees to each other. In a further embodiment in which the separating is carried out after the inversion, superimposed pairs of bricks are individually gripped and separated by means similar to the gripper head but not rotatable and operating at an additional station (Figs. 12-14, not shown).