Patent ID: 7565959

Claim:
An apparatus for orienting lightweight articles having an open neck and an opposed supporting bottom comprising: an open drum continuously rotatable in a 360° circular drum path about a substantially horizontal drum axis, said drum path having a top and bottom, a plurality of elongated alignment troughs mounted on the interior of the drum for rotation with the drum in a continuous trough path, each alignment trough having a longitudinal trough axis substantially parallel to the drum axis, each trough being adapted for receiving and carrying at least one lightweight article, a hood adjacent to the uppermost portion of the drum path to carry away air from the interior of the drum for temporarily holding lightweight articles in their respective troughs, a chute adjacent to one end of each trough, each chute moving with the drum in a circular chute path for receiving a lightweight article from the respective trough, and a stall positioned adjacent to each chute, each stall rotatable with the drum in a circular stall path receiving an article from the respective chute in a neck down attitude adjacent to the top of the drum path, whereby rotation of the stall to the bottom of the drum path inverts the article to a neck up attitude for discharge from the apparatus.