The invention relates to a feeder for feeding products to be dispatched, such as, for instance, documents, periodicals, CDs, DVDs, and the like, to a conveyor of a packaging line, provided with transport pushers, the feeder being provided with a magazine for storing a stack of products, the dimensions of the magazine being settable through the setting of guides.
Such a feeder is known from practice and is marketed by applicant. Descriptions are to be found, for instance, in the operating manual of the RF4-Feeder and in the operating manual of the “Big Foot” Shuttle Feeder, both of Buhrs-Zaandam The RF4-Feeder is a so-called drum feeder, whereby each time the bottommost product of a stack of products present in the magazine is pulled loose and is transported downwards via a gripper drum to be delivered there onto a conveying surface along which the transport pushers of the conveyor travel. In the case of a shuttle feeder such as, for instance, the Big Foot Shuttle Feeder of Buhrs-Zaandam, each time the bottommost product of a stack of products present in the magazine is transported forwards by means of a sliding table and discharged by further conveying means, such as, for instance, conveyor wheels and/or conveyor belts, to a lower conveying surface along which the transport pushers of a conveyor of a packaging line travel.
In the known apparatuses, the guides of the magazine are set manually, so that they match the dimensions of the product to be processed by the feeder. In the known apparatuses, it is of great importance that the moment of delivery of the product by a feeder be accurately geared to the position of a passing transport pusher, since the product should not end up on a transport pusher or far ahead of a transport pusher, but should be deposited onto the conveying surface with a trailing edge shortly before a transport pusher, so that the traveling speed of the product is substantially preserved and a reliable further conveyance of the product is effected. In practice, to that end, in the feeders according to the prior art, a number of operations are to be performed, whereby each feeder, in the so-called toggle position, which is a kind of test position, is phased to the conveyor by manual adjustment of a potentiometer. This needs to be performed for every feeder, which is a time consuming job which is at the expense of the production time of the packaging line.
It is known per se to store the product dimensions in the database of the control of the packaging line, so that these data can already be taken into account when setting the feeders. A drawback of this known method is that in practice it happens regularly that the data in the database do not correspond to the actual sizes of the documents. In practice, therefore, mostly the dimensions of the products are first measured and entered in the database, after which the subsequent setting and synchronization with the conveyor can take place automatically.
The object of the invention is to provide a feeder without the above-mentioned drawbacks, that is, a feeder where the setting time can be limited considerably, and where the prior measurement of the dimensions of the products that are to be processed by the respective feeder can be omitted.
To that end, according to the invention, the feeder of the type described in the opening paragraph hereof is characterized in that at least a number of guides are in communication with a sensor, such that the position of the respective guide is known, while the control is arranged, on the basis of the signals coming from the sensors, to set at least one setting of a packaging line of which the feeder forms a part.
In such a feeder, therefore, with the setting of the dimensions of the magazine through the positioning of the guide, automatically information is obtained about the dimensions of the product. This information is communicated to the control, so that the control can proceed to automatically set at least one setting of the packaging line of which the feeder forms a part. Since the dimensions of the magazine have to be set anyway when placing the product in it, the necessary dimension information is very efficiently obtained with the aid of the feeder according to the invention, without this entailing any loss of costly production time of the packaging line.
According to a further elaboration of the invention, it is particularly favorable when one of the settings to be set is the moment of delivery of a document from the feeder, while the control is arranged to determine this moment of delivery by processing the positions of the guides sensed with the sensors and the position of the transport pushers of the conveyor, such that the moment of delivery is automatically synchronized with the passing transport pushers.
Thus an automatic feeder synchronization is obtained, whereby the dimensions of the products present in the feeder are taken into account directly. It is therefore not necessary anymore to fill the database of the control of the packaging line manually with the dimensions of the various products to be processed. Moreover, the risk is thus eliminated that data already present in the database, concerning dimensions of products to be processed, deviate from the actual dimensions of the products to be processed. The chance of malfunctions is therefore reduced considerably.
The invention further provides a packaging line provided with a conveyor with transport pushers and at least one feeder according to the invention. Such a packaging line has the major advantage that the setting time required therefor is considerably reduced in that data about dimensions of products are automatically obtained when setting the guides of the feeder magazines. Such data can subsequently be used for setting various other matters to be set, pertaining to, for instance, a packaging station included in the packaging line.
Further elaborations of the feeder and the packaging line are described in the dependent claims and will be further clarified hereinafter on the basis of two exemplary embodiments, with reference to the drawing.
The top plan view represented in perspective in
It will be clear that also other sensors than the inductive sensors 7, 8, 9 represented here can be used to determine the positions of the guides 3, 4, 5.
The second exemplary embodiment, which is represented in
The operation of a shuttle feeder is known per se. The sliding table 52 performs a reciprocating movement and thereby moves the bottommost product of a stack of products present in the magazine 51 between the pull-in wheels 72. These pull-in wheels 72 provide for the farther transport of the respective product to the conveyor of the packaging line provided with transport pushers.
Apart from the synchronization of the moment of delivery with the travel of the pusher conveyor, it is also possible, with the signals delivered by the sensors, to automatically set other features of the packaging line. Thus, the packaging line can be provided, for instance, with a packaging station 78. Such a packaging station 78 is generally provided with guides 79 and conveyor belts 80 for continuously forming a packaging tube from a planar paper or film web. In the packaging tube, the products delivered by the feeders 76, 77 and conveyed by the transport pushers 74 to the packaging station 78 are included. Downstream of the packaging station 78, there is generally a separating station 81 for separating discrete, packaged products from the packaging tube. Such a separating station 81, which is also known from practice and which is marketed by applicant, is generally provided with a cutting or sealing bar which performs a horizontal stroke and a vertical stroke. Preferably, the control of the packaging line is arranged to set the guides 79 of the packaging station automatically depending on the signals delivered by the sensors of the at least one feeder. In addition, the control is preferably arranged to set the horizontal and/or the vertical stroke of the cutting or sealing bars of the separating station 81 depending on the signals delivered by the sensors of the at least one feeder. Thus, the whole setting of the width of the packaging tube and the length of the packages can be automatically set by setting the guides of the feeders. With the setting of the guides of the feeders, the various dimensions of the products to be packaged are communicated to the control, after which an automatic synchronization of the various feeders with the main conveyor can take place, as well as an automatic setting of the guides of the packaging station and of the horizontal and/or the vertical stroke of the separating station.
The manual setting of the feeders is therefore superfluous. Moreover, the feeders will at the same time synchronize themselves with the main conveyor. Nor is it necessary anymore to input product dimensions in the database. Further, the invention provides the advantage that the database always contains the actual measurements of the products present in the magazine. Furthermore, the invention provides the possibility of positioning the products asymmetrically in the feeder, through an asymmetrical positioning of the side guides. For this purpose, no data need to be inputted in the database. Owing to the size data becoming available automatically when the product guides have been placed against the product, the system is very easy to handle and requires hardly any training.
It will be clear that the invention is not limited to the exemplary embodiments described but that various modifications are possible within the framework of the invention as defined by the claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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1023745 | Jun 2003 | NL | national |