Patent ID: 8684165

Claim:
In combination an infeed conveyor and a collator for collating product, the combination comprising; a) the infeed conveyor transporting product along an infeed direction to an infeed point of the infeed conveyor where the collator receives product from the infeed conveyor and conveys product along a collator transport direction, wherein the infeed direction and collator transport direction are oriented at substantially right angles to each other, b) the collator includes a collator belt with attached product receptacles wherein each receptacle includes receptacle walls oriented normal to the collator belt, and a receptacle bottom oriented parallel to the collator belt, c) a means for pre selectively adjusting the collator and infeed conveyor between delivery of the product to the collator at an on flat load position wherein the product is delivered resting substantially on the receptacle bottom and delivery of the product to the collator at an on edge load position wherein the product at an on edge load position is delivered resting substantially on the receptacle wall, d) such that the same collator and infeed conveyor can be utilized to selectively deliver product to the collator and collate product at an on flat load position and at an on edge load position, e) wherein the adjusting means including a horizontal adjustment mechanism for urging the collator between a left position and a right position.