Patent ID: 7798308

Claim:
An assembly for rotating a selected article in a stream of like articles without rotating an adjacent article, each of the articles moving along a conveying surface of a conveyor belt with a speed of forward travel and comprising an axis which is normal to the conveying surface, the assembly comprising: a mechanism for revolving the selected article around the axis without changing the speed of forward travel of the axis; wherein a distance traveled by the axis of the revolving selected article is greater than a distance between the axis of the revolving selected article and the axis of the non-revolving adjacent article, wherein each of the articles comprises a substantially cylindrical portion coaxial with the article axis of rotation, and said revolving mechanism comprises: first and second moving surfaces, said surfaces positioned opposite one another at a level of the article cylindrical portion, said surfaces running parallel to and travelling in the same direction as the conveying surface, each of said surfaces travelling at a speed different than the speed of forward travel such that the average of said first and second moving surface speeds is the speed of forward travel; and a mechanism for increasing friction between said moving surfaces and said selected article cylindrical portion.