Pneumatic feed system for uniform supply of tobacco to cigarette making machines

Claim 1

An automatic tobacco conveying system for pneumatically conveying tobacco from a storage area to at least one cigarette making machine, said system including a main feed pipe coupled with the source of the stored tobacco and the cigarette making machine, a tobacco discharger associated with said cigarette making machine and having a housing with an inlet coupled with the main feed pipe and an air discharge end and means for causing the separated tobacco to be discharged into the cigarette making machine, air differential pressure means for forcing air through the pipe at a predetermined conveying velocity, a tobacco feeder at the source of stored tobacco for feeding the tobacco into the main feed pipe, and air pressure sensitive means for sensing the air pressure in the main pipe and actuating the operation of the feeder upon attainment of the predetermined conveying velocity of the air to the cigarette making machine, the improvement comprising: tobacco separating means within the housing for separating tobacco carried by air entering the inlet in a uniform manner so that the separated tobacco is distributed uniformly within the housing so that when the separated tobacco is discharged into the cigarette making machine it will be discharged in a uniform manner, said tobacco separating means in said housing including a tobacco separating screen arranged within the housing intermediate the inlet and discharge ends which are located on opposing sides of the housing for separating tobacco carried by air entering the inlet end, said separating screen being sloped angularly upward from the discharge end side of the housing toward the inlet end side of the housing thereby providing a progressively increasing area beneath the screen within the housing from the air discharge side to the air inlet side to assist in providing uniform discharge of the tobacco into the cigarette making machine.