Patent ID: 7789087

Claim:
A cigarette making apparatus comprising: a solenoid-assisted hopper for accepting loose tobacco and feeding the loose tobacco into a loading chamber; a cigarette tube filling cassette with nozzles and a hinged lid for assisting in maintaining cigarette tubes in a predetermined alignment for loading tobacco; a cigarette tube filling mechanism with a track for slidably accepting the cigarette tube filling cassette, a compactor for compacting tobacco in the loading chamber, and a pushing spoon for pushing compacted tobacco from loading chamber into cigarette tubes on the cigarette tube filling cassette; an indexer for advancing the cassette to align each cigarette tube on the cigarette tube filling cassette with the tobacco pushing spoon; a cigarette tube tobacco packing mechanism with guide pins for guiding the cassette in engagement with flatted tip pins that compress tobacco into cigarette tubes after tobacco has been inserted; and an electronic control for controlling the cigarette tube filling and packing apparatus.