Apparatus for printing and feeding caps to a bottle capping machine

Abstract

Apparatus for filling, capping and dating thin-walled plastic milk bottles. The date is embossed into the caps just before they are applied to the filled bottles while they are retained in indexed position by a special ratchet-pawl arrangement. The caps are screwed on by a rotating chuck having jaws that engage only a portion of the periphery of the cap. There is a lost-motion connection between the chuck and its spindle.

Description

Claims

1. In an apparatus for filling, capping and dating bottles, comprising means for feeding bottles through said apparatus, bottle filling means, means for feeding plastic caps to the filled bottles and means for applying said caps to said bottles, the improvement comprising means for printing a date on said caps before they are applied to the bottles, said printing means including cap-imprinting means and indexing means for accurately locating the caps successively in printing position in fixed relationship to said imprinting means, said indexing means including pawl means, means for driving said pawl means, cap engaging means, a toothed ratchet wheel operatively connected to said cap engaging means and driven by said pawl means, the construction and arrangement being such that during the driving of said pawl means said pawl means engages a tooth of said ratchet wheel to move said ratchet wheel and means to wedge said pawl means against the teeth of said ratchet wheel to prevent movement of said ratchet wheel.

2. In an apparatus for filling, capping and dating bottles, comprising means for feeding bottles through said apparatus, bottle filling means, means for feeding plastic caps to the filled bottles, and means for applying said caps to said bottles, the improvement comprising means for printing a date on said caps before they are applied to the bottles, said printing means including cap-imprinting means and indexing means for accurately locating the caps successively in printing position in fixed relationship to said imprinting means, said indexing means including pawl means, means for driving said pawl means, cap engaging means, a toothed ratchet wheel operatively connected to said cap engaging means driven by said pawl means, said pawl means having a first shoulder for engaging a first tooth of said ratchet wheel to move said ratchet wheel, a second shoulder for engaging the next tooth of said ratchet wheel to move said ratchet wheel further, and a blocking face for substantially conforming to the rear face of a tooth of said ratchet wheel, and means for keeping said faces in contact to prevent further movement of said ratchet wheel.

3. Apparatus as in claim 2 in which said pawl means comprises a reciprocating pawl having said first and second shoulders and said blocking face, said pawl driving means comprises a pivotally mounted reciprocating drive means for reciprocating said pawl, said apparatus including a stop adapted to be engaged by said pawl, the construction and arrangement being such that on movement of said pawl in its operative direction its first shoulder engages said first tooth, on continued movement the pawl is engaged and tilted by the tip of said next tooth thus moving said first shoulder out of engagement with said first tooth while said second shoulder engages said next tooth thereby further rotating said ratchet wheel until said blocking pawl face and the rear face of the tooth following said next tooth are brought into said contact and said stop is engaged by said pawl and prevents tilting of said pawl.

4. Apparatus as in claim 3 including means, responsive to each bottle fed to said cap-applying means, for actuating said reciprocating drive means, and means responsive to the movement of said pawl to said blocking position for actuating said imprinting means.

5. Apparatus as in claim 4 in which said reciprocating drive means comprises a pneumatic cylinder and said imprinting means comprises a hammer for engaging the inside of a cap located in printing position, a dating die having raised indicia against which the outside of said cap is pressed by said hammer and a pneumatic cylinder for driving said hammer.