Patent ID: 8337138

Claim:
A thermoformed article stack segmenting apparatus, comprising: a frame; a stacked article guide channel carried by the frame, generally horizontally extending, and configured to receive and guide a stack of inter-nested articles exiting a female die of a thermoforming trim press; a forward engaging drive finger; a drive finger actuator coupled with the drive finger to drive the finger forward in engagement with one separated stack of articles and to drive the finger rearward in a retractable state to separate another, successive stack of articles; a rearward engaging holding finger pivotally supported by the frame and having an arm with an arcuate slot; and a holding finger actuator coupled with the holding finger and having a drive pin extending through the arcuate slot in the arm, the holding finger actuated by the holding finger actuator between raised and lowered positions, the holding finger supported in elevationally floating relation at the lowered position to provide limited rotational decoupling of the arm relative to the pin and configured to hold the another, successive stack of articles while driving the forward engaging drive finger forward; wherein the rearward engaging holding finger is provided by a distal end of a beak arm pivotally supported on a drive shaft with limited pivotal decoupling provided between the arcuate slot on the drive finger and the drive pin is rigidly mounted to the shaft to provide limited rotational decoupling of the beak arm relative to the shaft.