Patent Application
20080236995
The present disclosure relates generally to devices and methods of operation of devices for separating inserts and ejecting inserts at a point of delivery.
Often during the production and packaging of a product along an assembly line, it desired to place some small item, such as a coupon or other relatively small or thin objects, into or onto the product or packaging. Particularly where the assembly line for these products moves at fairly rapid pace, it may be difficult or very labor intensive to place the correct number and type of item into or onto the packages. Over time, different machines that are part of, or may be positioned adjacent to, the assembly line have been developed to more accurately and quickly insert items into the packaging. These machines have also made possible a reduction in the level of human resources involved in the insertion process.
Conventional devices for inserting items may often draw the items from a large roll, fanfold or other bulk package. The items to be inserted may be formed into a continuous roll or stream, with a breakable web between the items. The continuous roll or stream of items, besides facilitating the production of the items themselves, may permit more efficient loading and operation of the insertion device. As part of the insertion process, the device may engage the roll or stream, separate the endmost of the items from the roll or stream and inject that item into the package. To facilitate this separation, the breakable web may include perforations, thinned sections, or other weakened portions.
Once the web is broken between two inserts, it may be desirable to move the separated insert as quickly as possible to the package to enable the package to move as quickly as possible in the line of packages, and also to enable the next insert to be positioned for separation and insertion. At the same time, it may be desirable to handle the roll or stream of inserts as smoothly as possible, to avoid premature separation.
Conventional separation and insertion devices may not be able to operate the infeed and outfeed elements handling the roll or stream and the insertion, respectively, in isolation with each other. A conventional device may incorporate a motor coupled to the infeed and outfeed by a transmission or clutch assembly, to permit the acceleration and deceleration as needed for staging and inserting the items.
Improvements to conventional separation and insertion devices and methods of operating these devices are desired.
The present invention relates generally to a method operating an inserter for placing objects into items moving along a production line. The inserter includes an infeed and an outfeed, each connected to and driven by a separate independent servo motor. A controller energizes the servo motors to drive the infeed and the outfeed to position a first object of a continuous feed into the outfeed with a web between the first and second objects within a bursting gap between the infeed and the outfeed. The outfeed tensions the continuous feed to burst the web between the first and second objects, thus creating a burst object, and then ejects the burst object from the inserter. The burst object may be ejected into a package or other item on a production line.
The accompanying drawing figures, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the description, illustrate several aspects of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. A brief description of the figures is as follows:
Reference will now be made in detail to exemplary aspects of the present invention which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts.
Controller 102 is operatively connected to inserter 100 and may be located directly adjacent the inserter or be remotely mounted if necessary or desired. Controller 102 provides the operational instructions to inserter 100 to regulate the nature and speed of operation of the inserter. Various controls, data entry interfaces and displays may be provided on an exterior of controller 102. Some or all of these controls, interfaces and displays may be mounted inside a housing of controller 102 if greater protection is desired. It is desirable that at least an emergency shut-off control is provided on an exterior surface of controller 102.
Nose 104 serves as an end of an outfeed 106 within inserter 100. Mounted within a housing of inserter 100 is an infeed 108, which can be seen in
Referring now to
Outfeed 106 may include a driven roller 138 and an idler roller 140 defining an outfeed nip 142. Idler roller 140 may be removably and releasably held in place adjacent driven roller 138 with another tension bar 132 and spring biased tensioning screws 136. To permit rollers 128 and 138 to be mounted closely to each other, a position sensor 144 may be mounted downstream from rollers 138 and 140 and mounted to housing 116 by a sensor mount 146. Position sensor 144 may be mounted as close as possible to rollers 138 and 140 to detect the position of coupons 103 as the coupons advance along path 110.
Referring now to
To provide coordination and timing between the movement of driven roller 138 and idler roller 140 and belt 122 of outfeed 108, a similar non-slip drive arrangement such as a drive belt 156 may be provided between idler roller 140 and a roller 158 about which belt 122 passes. The diameters of the portions of the various rollers about which the drive belts pass may be selected to ensure that the speed at which a coupon is moved through outfeed nip 142 generally matches the speed of movement of belt 122 which collects a burst coupon after it passes through outfeed nip 142.
As shown, the servo motors 148, 152 are mounted above the rollers of the infeed and the outfeed. However, based on the requirements to fit inserter 100 within a particular space and to configure inserter 100 to work with different assembly lines, housing 116 may be configured with the servo motors mounted beneath the infeed and outfeed. Such an arrangement might essentially invert the arrangement as shown in
Referring now to
With the first servo motor 148 de-energized, the infeed rollers stop with the second forwardmost object 103 held at infeed nip 134. Second servo motor 150 continues to be energized, driving the rollers of outfeed 106. This places the particular web 201 that happens to be positioned within bursting gap under sufficient tension to break or separate the web, which had been holding the forwardmost coupon 103 to the second forwardmost coupon. Once the web separates, the now-freed forwardmost coupon 103 advances through outfeed nip 142 between rollers 138 and 140 of outfeed 106 and onto belt 122. Idlers 124 hold this separated coupon against belt 122 which advances the coupon through outfeed 106 to nose 104 where it is ejected from inserter 100.
Once first servo motor 148 of infeed 108 has been de-energized, it may be desirable to increase the speed of second servo motor 150 of outfeed 106 to speed up the ejection of the separated coupon from the inserter. However, it may not be desirable to have outfeed 106 operating at a widely different speed than infeed 108 while an unburst coupon 103 is being positioned for separation. Once the separated coupon 103 has been ejected from inserter 100, speed of second servo motor 150 may be decreased to coincide with the feed speed of first servo motor 148.
Note that speeds in servo motors 148 and 150, and thus of rollers 128 and 138, respectively, need not be matched, but merely coordinated. In normal operation, it may be desirable that the speed of the outfeed be matched to the feed speed of the infeed while an insert is being positioned for bursting. This ensures that the infeed and the outfeed are not tensioning the insert until a web is positioned within the bursting gap. For different lengths and surface characteristics of inserts, it may be desirable to have outfeed 106 operating at a speed greater than the feed speed of infeed 108. For certain inserts, such as for those equal in length to a spacing of the nips 134 and 142, it has been determined that the speed of outfeed 106 may be as much as sixty percent greater than the feed speed of infeed 108. For these inserts, as soon as, or shortly after, the leading edge enters outfeed nip 142, the web between the first two inserts has already entered the bursting gap. For inserts substantially longer than the spacing between the infeed and outfeed nips, it is desirable that the speed of the infeed and the speed of the outfeed be matched to each other so that the insert is not excessively tensioned until the forwardmost web has entered the bursting gap.
Once first servo motor 148 has been de-energized, the speed of outfeed 106 may be raised to a speed much greater than the feed speed or the related speed. Preferably, this speed increase comes after the web within the bursting gap has been separated. For example, a feed speed of infeed 108 may be five hundred inches per minute. The matching speed of outfeed 106 may be from five hundred inches per minute (or up to eight hundred inches per minute shorter coupons, as described above). Once the coupon is positioned for bursting, infeed 108 may be stopped, the web between the first two coupons burst and outfeed 106 may be accelerated to five thousand inches per minute or more, depending on the capabilities of servo motor 150 and outfeed 106, and the characteristics of the coupons or objects 103 being ejected from inserter 100. Sensor 144 may also be used to detect a trailing edge of the burst coupon being moved along the outfeed to be ejected and inserter 100 may wait for the passage of this trailing edge of the burst coupon before accelerating the outfeed to the greater ejection speed. Alternatively, the outfeed may be accelerated without the need for a trailing edge to be sensed by sensor 144.
Sensor 144 may also be used as a failsafe. Sometimes, webs may fail to separate or other failures may occur during the feed and bursting process. If the outfeed is being driven and a failure to separate has occurred, then no trailing edge will pass by the sensor. Either the continuous feed will be fed through the inserter and no break will indicate a trailing edge, or the coupon to have been burst will be stuck in the path and will not pass the sensor. Controller 102 may be configured so that if a trailing edge has not been sensed by sensor 144 within a set period of time, motors 148 and 150 may be de-energized.
In a preferred operation mode, inserter 100 will have servo motor 150 powering outfeed 106 continually at a selected speed. The forward edge 234 of forwardmost coupon 103 of feed 210 will be preferably positioned within bursting gap 204, as shown in
Once the web 201 holding the forwardmost coupon is within bursting gap 204, the bursting and ejecting as described above takes place. Once the coupon 103 has been ejected from inserter 100, outfeed 106 is slowed down to the selected speed associated or related with the feed speed to await the next coupon advanced into rollers 138 and 140 by infeed 108.
While the foregoing description indicates sensor 144 is located directly adjacent to roller 138 of outfeed 106 within bursting space 204, it is anticipated that sensor 144 may be mounted in a variety of locations along path 110 of inserter 100 according to the present disclosure. For example, sensor 144 may be located at an entry into infeed 208 and sense the passage of a leading edge of an item to be inserted as it enters inserter 100. As long as the distance from the sensing point to the bursting space are known, the distance necessary to move the forwardmost object through the bursting space and position the appropriate web 201 within the bursting space can be calculated and the controller can operate the inserter appropriately. Sensor 144 may be mounted in almost any desired location along the path downstream from outfeed nip 142. The minimum limitation on the length of the objects to be inserted depends on the distance separating the nips 134 and 142. The objects 103 need to be long enough so that when the forwardmost object is captured at outfeed nip 142, only one web 201 is within bursting gap 204. With sensor 144 located downstream of rollers 138 and 140 as shown in
It is desirable that rollers 128, 130, 138 and 140, as well as belt 122 be made of a material with a sufficient coefficient of friction with coupons 103 to ensure that the rollers and the belt adequately grip the coupons to maintain timing and function of inserter 100. As seen in
It is anticipated that rollers 128, 130, 138 and 140 may be made of a resilient deformable material that will permit inserts of varying thickness to be handled by inserter 100 without adjustment. For example, continuous feed 210 may include inserts 103 of varying thickness, with some being comprised of a single layer of material, such as card stock, and others within the same feed being comprised of two or more layers of the same material. Or, inserts in the same continuous feed could comprise the same number of layers with the layers including materials of varying thicknesses. These deformable rollers may also work in conjunction spring biased tension bars 132 to permit movement or downward displacement of rollers 130 and 140 in reaction to thicker inserts passing through path 110.
The rollers may develop temporary or permanent flat spots or depressions from being in constant contact under pressure with each other when inserter 100 is not in operation. A tension release may be provided to move tension bars 132 downward against springs and displace the rollers from each other when inserter 100 is not in operation. As shown in
Referring now to
As a further alternative embodiment, an encoder may be incorporated into or positioned adjacent production line 300 to sense the speed of advance of products 302 along production line 300 toward inserter 100. If there is a variation in speed of production line 300, this may result in the particular item 302 not being positioned to receive the object 103 when the object is ejected from the inserter. Signals from the encoder could be received by controller 102 which could then vary the speed of outfeed 106 to take into account any changes in speed of the production line. If the line is stopped, the outfeed could also be stopped.
Inserters according to the present disclosure may not require a separate bursting device in the bursting space, as the ability to quickly accelerate and decelerate the servo motors and thus the infeed and outfeed relative to each other should provide sufficient tension to separate adjacent objects. However, it is anticipated that inserters including servo motors driving the infeed and outfeed may be adapted to include a bursting device if the nature of the objects, the web between objects or the continuous feed require additional bursting tension. Inserters including such bursting device are described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,032,774, issued on Apr. 25, 2006, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
In the above description of operation, servo motor 148 driving infeed 108 is described as stopping movement between the various steps. However, it may also be that the inserter may be in continuous operation. This may be required by the speed of the production line and the number of items 302 needing an insert 103 that are moving along the production line 300. The bursting tension required in inserter 100 to separate web 201 between adjacent inserts 103 of feed 210, may be generated by having servo motor 148 continue to drive infeed 108 at the feed speed while servo motor 150 accelerates outfeed 106 to the higher insertion or ejection speed. Thus, the web between coupons may be tensioned and burst by the speed differential between the infeed and the outfeed, without having to stop infeed 108. The precision control provided by the use of servo motors and the use of non-slip drive arrangements between the servo motors and the belts, may permit rapid enough acceleration of the outfeed speed to create the necessary tension to burst the web, eject the now-burst forwardmost object 103 into the item and then rapid enough deceleration of the outfeed to match the feed speed before the next object 103 passes through the bursting space to engage the outfeed.
There may be practical limit to the length of the outfeed between bursting space 204 and nose 104 to permit this continuous operation. For inserter 100, a feed speed of approximately five hundred inches per second and an insertion speed approximately five thousand feet per second may permit extension of the nose of up to thirty-six inches or even further.
While the invention has been described with reference to preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not intended to be limited to the specific embodiments set forth above. Thus, it is recognized that those skilled in the art will appreciate that certain substitutions, alterations, modifications, and omissions may be made without departing from the spirit or intent of the invention. Accordingly, the foregoing description is meant to be exemplary only, the invention is to be taken as including all reasonable equivalents to the subject matter of the invention, and should not limit the scope of the invention set forth in the following claims.
