Patent ID: 7810300

Claim:
An apparatus for packing stickpacks in cartons, the stickpacks being produced by a machine having multiple dropping channels regularly distanced from one another by an interaxial measurement which is more than twice a width of a single stickpack, the apparatus comprising: a ring-wound conveyor line having at least two batteries of walled compartments, each battery having a number of walled compartments which is a multiple of a number of the dropping channels, the walled compartments being regularly spaced by a distance which is half the interaxial measurement distancing the dropping channels from one another; means for independently driving each of the batteries of walled compartments along the conveyor line, and for alternately positioning the batteries first at an upstream loading station, and subsequently at a downstream carton-filling station; first operating means, provided at the loading station and activated in a phase relation with the respective drive means associated with each battery of walled compartments as each battery is situated in turn at the loading station, the first means collecting the stickpacks exiting from the machine and placing the stickpacks in a first set of walled compartments aligned with the drop channels forming a pile of the stickpacks in each compartment of the battery, the pile having a predetermined number of stickpacks, the first operating means then moving the battery forward in half steps to align further sets of walled compartments with the drop channels until the battery is filled; second operating means, provided in the carton-filling station, which transfer at least one pile of stickpacks from at least one walled compartment of each battery, as each battery having walled compartments with stickpacks located therein is situated in turn at the carton-filling station, into an adjacent carton, located on a relative supply line partially flanking the conveyor line and being synchronously positioned and advanced in coordination therewith.