Patent ID: 7415815

Claim:
A method for filling tubes comprising: (a) providing a tube dispensing magazine comprising: a receiving compartment for temporarily receiving a first plurality of unfilled tubes intended for being filled with a flowable product, the compartment being formed with a movable outer rail wall; a gate assembly downstream from the receiving compartment and including a constriction passageway formed between a lateral inner wall and a lateral member wall allowing movement of tubes only in a single file, the lateral member wall being movable in a direction toward or away from the lateral inner wall and being integrally movable as a member of the outer rail wall thereby adjusting a cross-sectional dimension of the passageway to accommodate processing of different diameter tubes; (b) integrally moving said outer rail wall and said lateral wall member to adjust the cross-sectional dimension of the passageway to accommodate processing of preselected diameter unfilled tubes; (c) loading the receiving compartment with the preselected diameter unfilled tubes; (d) allowing the magazine to feed the preselected diameter unfilled tubes, one tube at a time, to a product filling station downstream from the magazine; and (e) filling each of the preselected diameter unfilled tubes with product.