Apparatus with a rotatable head for supplying cigarettes to the infeed hoppers on high speed cigarette packeting machines

Claim 1

Apparatus for transferring cigarettes to an infeed hopper of a cigarette packeting machine, comprising; a conveyor movable in a succession of longitudinal steps for delivering cigarette containers aligned parallel with one another on and transversely of the conveyor, each container being substantially as wide as each of the cigarettes is long and having an aperture for enabling gravitational discharge of the cigarettes from the container through the aperture; a rotatable, generally box-shaped head disposed adjacent one side of the conveyor, having two ends, recessed sides therebetween and an axis extending between the two ends, each recessed side defining a cavity receptive, through one of the ends, of one of the cigarette containers and which has a discharge mouth substantially coincident with the aperture of the received container, the discharge mouths being provided opposite one another in respective ones of the cavities; a fixed structure supporting the head for rotation about said axis; transfer means for successive pairs of transfer strokes and for transferring in each pair of transfer strokes a container filled with cigarettes from the conveyor into one of the two cavities of the head and a container emptied of cigarettes from the other cavity back to the conveyor; electromechanical means for synchronously intermittently operating (a) the conveyor to deliver successive filled containers to the transfer means and successive emptied containers from the transfer means, (b) the transfer means itself to perform the successive pairs of transfer strokes, and (c) the rotatable head to alternately position either discharge mouth in a downwardly facing position for discharging cigarettes into an infeed hopper of a cigarette packeting machine; and two back square units on the rotatable head for mechanically opening and closing the discharge mouths, each unit comprising a closure member for selectively opening and closing one of the discharge mouths, arms extending from the closure member to pivot ends, a shaft extending through the pivot ends of the arms and to the ends of the head and pivotally supported on each of those ends, a spring for resiliently biasing the shaft with the arms and the closure member to close the discharge mouth by the closure member, and feeler means disposed at one end of the head, opposite the fixed structure, for mechanically feeling a completion of each successive rotation of the head and the corresponding positioning of either discharge mouth in a downwardly facing position, to rotate the corresponding shaft and arms, against the biasing of the corresponding spring, and thereby to move the respective closure member to open its discharge mouth, the feeler means including two levers, one secured to an end of the shaft of each back square unit, each lever cantilevering from its shaft, opposite one of the ends of the head, and an arcuate guide rail on the fixed structure opposite said one end of the head and concentric with the axis of the head, the guide rail being normally engageable with a free end of each lever and having an end portion disengageable therefrom to enable resilient closing of each discharge mouth by the respective closure member and spring on inception of the next rotation of the head.