GB1200725A - Improvements relating to article-diverting apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

1,200,725. Roller conveyers. SOVEX Ltd. 24 Oct., 1967 [24 Oct., 1966; 27 jan., 1967], Nos. 47655/66 and 4098/67. Heading B8A. Apparatus for diverting conveyed articles auch as bundles of newspapers includes crowned rollers 5 which may be covered with rubber and whose mountings 9 are rotatable in vertical bores 11 provided in fixed members 12. For rotating the mountings 9 in unison, arms 17 are reciprocable by a crank and crosshead device 18-22. Alternatively a chain in engagement with the mountings 9 may be used. The drive for the crank-shaft 22 is through a clutch 49, a brake unit 51 and a chain 46, a limit switch or switches being operable by the shaft 22. Each roller 5 is drivable by bevel gears 28, 29 and by a sprocket 31, these sprockets being driven by a common chain 44. The rollers can be driven in one or other direction depending on which one of two clutch units 42 (one only shown) is engaged. A motor 33, through a gear-box 34 drives the shaft 22 and the sprockets 31. Assuming that a bundle is to be transferred from the top side to the right hand side relative to Fig. 1, that clutch 42 is engaged which will cause the rollers 5 to advance the bundle from top to bottom. When the bundle is symmetrically positioned on the rollers, the clutch 42 is disengaged and clutch 49 is engaged, causing the rollers to turn through 90 degrees about the vertical axes of the mountings 9. The clutch 49 is then disengaged and the clutch 42 engaged to cause the rollers to move the bundle off to the right. After again disengaging the clutch 42, the roller mountings are returned to their initial positions. The above sequence may be automatically or manually controlled. For changing the orientation of an article while on the apparatus the rollers 9 are brought to a tangential position in relation to circles about the centre of the apparatus. In Fig. 9 the mountings for the rollers are rotatable by a chain 54, a sprocket 55 and an arm 56 which arm takes the place of the crank arm 21 on the shaft 22. The rollers 5a, 5b are rotated in a reverse direction compared with rollers 5c, 5d. Separately reversible drives for the rollers are necessary, these being provided, for example, by electromagnetic clutches or a friction drive as in Fig. 11 (not shown). Articles are fed to the rollers 5 by sets of rollers 3 which may be driven or undriven.