Molded plastic container secondary operations machine

Claim 1

Apparatus for transferring articles from station to station comprising a. article grasping members, b. means for mounting said grasping members for lateral movement between open and closed positions and for reciprocal longitudinal movement, the longitudinal movement in one direction being accomplished while said grasping members are open and longitudinal movement in the other direction being accomplished while said grasping members are closed, c. a rotary member interconnected with said mounting means for effecting both lateral and longitudinal movement of said article grasping members, d. a contractible-extensible tie assembly means connecting said rotary member to said mounting means for translating the rotary motion of said rotary member to a longitudinal reciprocal stroke motion, the length of said reciprocal stroke being greater than the distance between stations, e. said tie assembly means including a first connecting member, a second connecting member, and yielding biasing means linking said first and second connecting members and holding said two connecting members in a predetermined stationary position with respect to each other during the translation of motion from said rotary member to said mounting means between stations, f. stop means positioned to contact said mounting means before the end of each reciprocal stroke and hold said mounting means at each staTion to define an index stroke while said tie assembly contracts and extends in response to said mounting means contact with said stop means, thereby creating a dwell period at each station, g. an annular cam rotatable with said rotary member, said cam having first and second arcuate sections of smaller and larger constant radii, respectively, and first and second connecting sections interconnecting said arcuate sections, h. a cam follower engaging said cam and mounted on the end of a bell crank to impart reciprocal movement thereto when engaging the connecting sections of the rotating cam and to cause the bell crank to dwell when engaging said constant radii sections, and i. means interconnecting said bell crank to said grasping members to cause said grasping members to open when the cam engages the first of said connecting sections and to close when the cam engages the second of said connecting sections.