Synchronized bottle unloading system

Claim 1

In an article unloader system having a carrier for holding articles arranged in a stack of shelves, each shelf containing rows of articles, means for intermittently simultaneously unloading only the forwardmost rows of articles from said carrier, an elevator means having a plurality of flights respective to receive the unloaded rows of articles for intermittently transporting the unloaded rows of articles, a transfer mechanism being driven in circular motion cycles for removing the unloaded rows of articles a row at a time as each said flight reaches a predetermined point of travel and passing each said removed row of articles onto a conveyor means, a common drive source, and corresponding drive transmission means extending from said drive source for simultaneously intermittently driving said elevator means and said transfer mechanism, the improvement comprising: a synchronization control means for regularly detecting the rate of movement of said elevator means at least once every cycle of said transfer mechanism and adjusting the speed of said elevator means to bring said elevator means back into synchronization with said transfer mechanism whenever movement of said elevator means is out of correlation with said transfer mechanism.