Patent Application
20120031041
The present invention relates to a system for packaging cigarettes into bent sheets equipped with electronic control motors.
Currently, to achieve the packaging of cigarettes, they must be wrapped within packaging sheets of various types, according to a wrapping direction transverse to the motion of the cigarettes, motion which allows placing the cigarettes in proper containers to wrap them in desired numbers for subsequent downstream insertion in boxes of various shapes and sizes.
For example, the technical field has therefore proposed various systems, such as those described in documents U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,534 and IT-A-1854726, which specifically concern the presence of containers transverse to the motion of the cigarettes forming a “U” as the packaging sheet wraps the actual cigarettes. Such systems, however, are composed of a large number of components cooperating with each other making them expensive, bulky and difficult to be configured in case of variations of packaging characteristics to be made.
In EP0553636, EP0970887, EP1616794, EP1780127, EP1832516, JP50322219, U.S. Pat. No. 4,887,408, U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,816, U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,758 and GB1425009, are described however other systems for packaging cigarettes in bent sheets having in common at least two wheels cooperating to join both cigarettes and the relative packaging sheet. The presence of two or more wheels, contributes to make these systems highly complex and bulky.
In general however, the known packaging systems have means for moving the various component parts which are substantially mechanically operated, such as an oil bath type, which have little flexibility in use and configuration.
Therefore, the purpose of the present invention is to solve the aforesaid problems of prior art by providing a system for packaging cigarettes in bent sheets equipped with electronic control motors, which is flexible and immediately adaptable to different end-use configurations, providing a fully electronic solution for moving the system, thereby allowing to achieve, for example, intermittently moving and advancement solutions without the use of complex mechanical solutions, but simply providing an electronic movement of various axes, with obvious advantages of immediacy and a wide range of different possible solutions. In fact, such electronically controlled electric motors allow for high flexibility where special bends in one direction or the other are needed to be made (bending points shifting); and further, when you turn off a motor for various reasons, the others may remain on, which allows clearing of the line in case of stalls. The fact of avoiding mechanical components (for example of the oil bath-type) permits to avoid jamming of the components themselves, which are sensed by the system only too late when overloaded. Instead, the presence of an electric motor that provides torque only when needed allows to directly and immediately detect the jam and the relative overload.
The aforesaid and other purposes and advantages of the invention, as embodied in the following description, are achieved with a system for packaging cigarettes in bent sheets as described in claim 1.
Preferred embodiments and unobvious variations of the present invention form the subject of the dependent claims.
It will be immediately obvious that countless variations and changes can be made to what is described (for example with respect to shape, size, arrangements and parts with equivalent functionality) without departing from the scope of protection of the invention as appears from the attached claims.
The present invention will be better described by some preferred embodiments, given as an example and without limitation, with reference to the attached drawings in which:
a to 7f shows a sequence of certain phases of the packaging by way of the system according to the present invention.
In reference to the Figures we can see that a preferred embodiment of system 1 covered by the present invention, system adapted for packaging cigarettes into bent sheets, includes:
The intermittent motion is made preferably by a chain driven by a cam mechanism or a motor (not shown).
The above mentioned configuration of the inventive system is very flexible, in the sense that the collecting means 7 may be operatively located upstream with respect to the packaging means 11 (as in the preferred embodiment illustrated in the Figures) and the means for keeping the sheets 6, or may also be operatively located downstream with respect to the packaging means 11 and the means for keeping the sheets 6 themselves. In this second embodiment, not shown, the packaging sheet 6 is placed in a container 9 by the packaging means 11, and the cigarettes 4 are then inserted into the container 9 and therefore in the relative sheet 6.
Furthermore, referring in particular to the Figures, it can be seen that the collecting means 7 may be made of at least one wheel 8, defining the aforesaid plane, rotating around the rotation axis RR: peripherally and radially around the wheel 8 are preferably connected the elongated containers 9, each of which, cyclically rotating jointly with the wheel 8, is filled with the appropriate number of cigarettes 4 by the supplying means 3 and is covered with the relative packaging sheet 6 by the packaging means 11: in correspondence to the moving means 13, the package 15 is therefore removed from the container 9 which therefore may return towards the means for supplying 3 cigarettes 4 to begin a new cycle of packaging: as can be seen particularly from
The means for collecting 7 cigarettes 4 could obviously be achieved in many equivalent ways, such as using a catenary wire (not shown) in the roto-translational motion of collecting and moving containers of cigarettes 4.
The collecting means 7 are made in such a way that, by means of the containers 9, only a part of or all the operations of collecting, tips control and possible rejection of cigarettes 4 can be performed. For example, in the second embodiment described above in which the packaging means 11 and the means for keeping the sheets 6 are located upstream of the collecting means 7, the tips control and rejection operation is done before inserting the cigarettes 4 into containers 9 with sheets 6.
Referring in particular to
Referring in particular to
Referring to the Figures, it can be noted that the system 1 for packaging cigarettes into bent sheets described above includes, for achieving the aims according to the invention:
And finally it is obvious that variations could be adopted of the aforesaid arrangement, in which some of the electric motors mentioned above can be merged into a single motor that performs the functions of the individual motors listed: while on one hand these variants would simplify the final realization of the system, reducing the number of included motors, on the other, they would reduce correspondingly the complete flexibility which is the key characteristic of the invention system.
For example, but without limiting the invention to what above described, the fourth electric motor 37 and the fifth electric motor could be built-in into a single motor to control both the packaging and keeping means; or else the seventh 41, the eighth 43 and the ninth electric motor 45 could be built-in into a single motor to operate the various means for bending 22, 44 packages 15.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| TO2009A000297 | Apr 2009 | IT | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/IT10/00157 | 4/13/2010 | WO | 00 | 10/14/2011 |
