GB2253829A - Label applying apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

A label printer 15 delivers adhesive labels 17 with price/weight data for attachment to an article 12 which has been weighed. The labels 17 are held by vacuum on an applicator head 24 and delivered using a short air blast to blow the labels onto the articles. A transfer mechanism 20 transfers the labels 17 from the printer 15 to the head 24. The mechanism 20 is mounted for linear reciprocal motion and the head 24 is mounted for movement in an arcuate path so that it can closely approach the article 12 to receive the label but the horizontal aspect of the label 17 held by vacuum to the head 24 is maintained through the movement of the head 24. The extent of reciprocal motion of the mechanism 20 is adjustable to cope with labels 17 of different lengths and the arcuate path of movement of the head 24 is adjustable to cope with articles 12 of different heights. The head 24 includes a rotatable pad (46' fig 5) which carries the label 17 and the pad (46, figs 5) is rotated to adjust the singular orientation at which the label 17 is applied to the article 12. <IMAGE>

Description

LABEL APPLYING APPARATUS This invention relates to label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles and is particularly, although not exclusively, applicable to label applying apparatus for weight/price labelling machines in which articles, such as wrapped food articles, are delivered by a conveyor firstly to a weigh station where they are weighed and then to a labelling station where a label is printed with the weight and price computed from the measured weight and other information such as dates, description and perhaps bar codes are applied to the label which is then attached to the article.

According to a first aspect the present invention provides label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles, said apparatus comprising first means for dispensing labels one at a time, second means for applying dispensed labels to articles one at a time, the second means being spaced from the first means and having a datum position for capture of dispensed labels, and transfer means for transferring labels from the first means to the second means when the latter is in its datum position, wherein the transfer means is mounted for linear reciprocal motion between the first and second means and the second means is mounted for movement in an arcuate path which includes said datum position.

Preferably said arcuate path is provided by the second means being pivotally mounted eccentrically on a rotatable disc and coupling means are provided to interconnect the pivot mount and the disc shaft whereby during rotation of the disc the orientation of the second means is maintained so that a label carried by the second means has its horizontal aspect maintained.

Preferably the disc shaft is adjustably positionable in a direction substantially orthogonal to the direction of reciprocal motion of the transfer means, whereby the apparatus is able to apply labels to articles of different heights.

Preferably the transfer means has its linear reciprocal motion adjustably limited in extent so that its travel in the direction of the second means is adjustably limited, whereby the apparatus is able to apply labels of different lengths.

According to a second aspect the present invention provides label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles, said apparatus comprising an applicator head having a pad adapted for carrying a label to be applied to an article, said head being mounted for pivotal motion about a pivot axis eccentrically mounted with respect to a rotation axis, and means for changing the vertical position of the rotation axis without altering the horizontal aspect of the pad.

Preferably said vertical position changing means comprises a system of interconnected mechanical levers one of which carries the rotational axis intermediate the lever ends, the system being moveable by an air operated rotary vane actuator.

According to a third aspect the present invention provides label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles, said apparatus comprising an applicator head having a pad adapted for carrying a label to be applied to an article, said pad being carried by a rotatably mounted shaft, and actuator means coupled to the shaft and adapted to rotate the shaft by up to 90 degrees in either direction, whereby to rotate a label carried by the pad, the actuator means comprising an air operated rotary vane actuator.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 illustrates a weight/price labelling machine incorporating apparatus according to the present invention; Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate the apparatus of Fig. 1 which forms the label transfer mechanism; Figs. 4,5 and 6 illustrate the apparatus of Fig. 1 which forms the label applicator; and Figs. 7 and 8 illustrate the apparatus of Fig. 1 which enables labels to be applied to articles of different heights.

The machine 10 which is illustrated in Fig. 1 comprises a belt conveyor 11 which moves in the direction of arrow A to transport an article 12 to a labelling station at B and thereafter the labelled article 12 is progressed by a roller conveyor 13 to a store (not shown). Conveyors 11,13 are located in a trough formed in a surface 14 and above the trough there is located a label printer 15 which receives a supply of unprinted labels 17 from a reel 16, prints the labels 17 with weight/price data pertinent to the weighed article 12 and issues the printed labels for attachment to the respective articles 12 at station B. The labels 17 are adhesive on their rear surface and are carried by a release tape which is parted from the labels at a dispense edge and collected by reel 18.The parted labels are individually delivered to the output of the printer 15 which is in the form of a gap or slot 19 adjacent the dispense edge.

The individually presented labels are transferred by a transfer mechanism 20 from the printer 15 to an applicator head 24 which is eccentrically mounted at axis 22 on a rotatable drive disc 25 which moves in the direction of arrow C about axis 23. Applicator head 24 is provided with a supply of vacuum in order to retain the label and during the motion of disc 25 the head 24 is effectively lowered towards the item 12 and is controlled in its orientation so that the label remains essentially horizontal and when the head 24 is at station B synchronously with the pertaining article 12 the label is released from the head by a short air blast and, provided the article 12 is within suitable range, e.g. 50mm, is thereby caused to adhere to the upper surface of the article 12.During the continued rotation of disc 25 about axis 23 the applicator head 24 continues its orbital movement about axis 22 with its orientation remaining unchanged , being essentially that illustrated in Fig. 1.

In order to transfer the label 17 from the slot 19 to the head 24 the transfer mechanism 20 comprises a pair of spaced-apart light-weight dependent arms 28 mounted on a cross-head 29. The cross-head 29 in turn is reciprocally slidable along a pair of guides 30 mounted on a U-shaped support 31 and is driven by a pneumatic cylinder 21. The arms 28 are provided at their free ends with feet 32 which are provided with suction ports (not shown) and to assist capture of the label 17 by the feet 32 an upwardly directed blast of air is delivered from a dab port 27 located beneath slot 19. Support 31, printer 15, reel 16 and disc 25 are all mounted on an upright support plate 33 and, in the interests of clarity, the various hoses for supply of air either at vacuum or at positive pressure are not shown, but all lead from supply ports formed on plate 33.

Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate the transfer mechanism 20 and its components in greater detail but pneumatic cylinder 21 is omitted from Fig. 3 in the interests of clarity.

Thus in Fig. 3 the guides 30 are of circular section fixedly mounted at either end in the support 31 which is generally U-shaped, and the cross-head 29 is mounted on the guides 30. Support 31 includes limb 31A critically located with respect to the printer 15 and its slot 19.

Adjacent limb 31A the travel of cross-head 29 is limited by the travel of the piston of cylinder 21. However, the other end of the travel of cross-head 29 is limited by an adjustable stop 34 which is secured by way of a male/female rack device 35 to the opposing limb 31B of support 31. Device 35 comprises a spring-loaded rack member 36 which is slidable along the limb 31B and is spring biassed into engagement with a linear rack member 37. When member 36 is moved away from member 37 stop 34 is axially moveable by manual pushing and pulling of knurled member 38. When the desired setting of end stop 34 is achieved rack member 36 is released and returns into engagement with member 37 by virtue of the spring action.The end stop 34 is secured to and moves with a plate member 39 which is associated with a proximity sensor 40 to sense the position of cross-head 29 when in abutment with stop 34. A corresponding proximity sensor 41 is provided adjacent limb 31A of support 31 to sense when cross-head 29 is adjacent limb 31A. Adjustable end stop 34 is provided to enable the transfer mechanism 20 to transfer labels of different lengths so that they are centralised when captured by the applicator head 24, whilst the physical separation of head 24 from slot 19 remains fixed.

Figs. 4,5, and 6 all illustrate details of the applicator head 24. Thus as shown in Fig. 5 head 24 has a body 51 which is mounted on disc 25 (not shown) for pivotal movement about axis 22 and a pad 46, which is rotatable about axis 47 formed in the body 51, by means of an air operated rotary vane actuator 48 so that the angular orientation of pad 46 can be adjusted as required in order that the label can be adhered to the article 12 in any desired angular orientation. Additionally pad 46 is provided with an air. supply providing both vacuum and pressurised air to the label. For this purpose pad 46 has a centrally disposed elongate recess 49 connected via passageways to an air supply at 50.Additionally the body 51 is provided with a series of circumferentially disposed apertures 52 around the periphery of the pad 46 and these also are connected via internal passageways to the air supply 50.

Fig. 6 illustrates the provision of limit stops 45 for determining the maximum rotation of the pad 46. A rectangular plate 53 is secured to the shaft between the actuator 48 and the pad 46 and engages stops 45 at either end of its travel. As illustrated in Fig. 6 this travel is shown set at 90 degrees. The particular angular position of the pad 46 is visually identified by an indicator 44 secured to the shaft of actuator 48 at its end remote from pad 46.

In order to apply labels to articles 12 which are of different heights it is necessary to alter the height of the rotational axis 23 of disc 25. The mechanism for achieving this is illustrated in Fig. 7 which shows support plate 33 on which several lever mechanisms and shafts are mounted. In particular, arm 60 which carries axis 23 is mounted for pivotal movement about fixed axis 61 by means of a link arm 62 pivotally connected at axis 63. Link arm 62 in turn is pivotally connected to link arm 64 at axis 65 and arm 64 is pivotal about fixed axis 66 by means of an air operated rotary vane actuator (not shown). When the arm 64 is moved it is capable of altering the position of axis 65 between the limiting positions which are shown in dotted outline at 67A and 67B. These limiting positions are determined by end stops 68 which abut the arm 64.Movement of arm 64 in turn causes movement of axis 63 between the positions illustrated at 69A, 69B and this in turn moves the axis 23 of disc 25. Thus, axis 23 can be located at any position along the length of the arc extending between points 70A and 70B. For the purpose of counter-balancing this lever arrangement arm 60 is extended to an eye 71 on the opposite side of axis 61 from axis 63 and eye 71 is connected to a counter-balancing pneumatic cylinder 72.

When arm 60 is moved a further pair of linked arms 73,74 are moved for reasons which will be explained hereafter.

Fig. 8 is a part top plan view of Fig. 7 which illustrates axis 23 as being provided by a shaft 80 carried by arm 60 pivotable about a stub shaft 81 forming axis 61. Shaft 81 is fixed in location between support plate 33 and a parallel support plate 85 and is axially aligned with a pulley wheel 90 connected to the output of a main drive gearbox 91. Pulley wheel 90 is connected by a belt drive to a pulley wheel 92 secured to shaft 80 for the purpose of effecting rotation of shaft 80 which at its end remote from pulley wheel 92 is secured to disc 25.

Inboard of its end at disc 25 shaft 80 supports a further pulley wheel 94 which is connected by a belt drive to a pulley wheel 96 secured to shaft 95 which forms the axis 22 for pivotal movement of applicator head 24. Pulley wheels 94,96 are of the same diameter so that when shaft 80 is rotated, although pulley wheel 94 does not rotate, shaft 95 is rotated to the same extent but in the opposite direction which provides that the working surface of pad 46 on head 24 remains horizontal at all times.

Fig. 8 also illustrates part of arm 62 being rotatable with a stub shaft 97 about axis 63 formed at one end of arm 60 and although arm 64 together with intermediate axis 65 is not illustrated, axis 66 is shown together with the rotary actuator 100 which is connected by way of its output shaft 101 to drive arm 64 around fixed axis 66.

When rotary actuator 100 is actuated in order to alter the position of shaft 80 the drive belt between pulleys 90 and 92 simply alters its wrapped position on pulley 92 without causing rotation of pulley 92 (assuming pulley 90 is stationary). The belt drive between pulleys 94 and 96 does likewise but because the movement of shaft 80 is arcuate around axis 61 the pad 46 of applicator head 24 is moved away from the horizontal position. To compensate for this unwanted angular movement of pad 46 pulley 94 is mounted on arm 73 which forms part of a parallel linkage together with arm 74 so that arm 73 is moved in a compensatory arcuate fashion during movements of shaft 80. Thus shaft 80 can be set to any height to accommodate any size of packaged article 12 and pad 46 of applicator head 24 is controlled to be horizontal in each case.

Fig. 8 also illustrates the disposition of the head 24 with respect to the feet 32 of the transfer mechanism 20 from which it will be seen that head 24 slides between the dependent arms 28 and feet 32 have a maximum travel set by stop 34 (Fig. 2) which is just short of abutment with shaft 95. Additionally line 102 in Fig. 8 denotes the edge of maximum width of label which can be handled by the printer 15 and line 103 denotes the centre line of the slot 19.

It will be understood that the machine 10 which is illustrated in the drawings additionally comprises an electro-pneumatic sequencing control system (not shown) which is arranged to move conveyors 11,13 in timed relationship with movements of the labels 17, the transfer mechanism 20 and the applicator head 24. Thus when both the article 12 and the applicator 24 are at station B the suction or vacuum applied to the head 24 is replaced by a pressure pulse to blow the label 17 onto the article 12.

If the article 12 reaches station B before head 24 reaches its blow position the conveyor 11 is stopped until the pressure pulse is. applied to head 24. If head 24 arrives in its blow position prior to the article 12 the conveyor 11 does not appear to stop. On completion of the pressure pulse in head 24 the disc 25 and head 24 commence their return to their datum position and both the label turn arrangement and the height adjustment for axis 23 are reset if required. During the transit to the datum position the next label 17 is collected by the feet 32 and the cycle restarts when the head 24 is in its datum position so that transfer mechanism 20 is driven across guides 30 to permit the label to be picked up centrally by the head 24. The feet 32 are provided with suction ports to enable the collection of the label (in combination with the dab port 27). The datum position of the label of the head 24 is as shown in Fig. 1 with the level of the pad 46 just above the level of the label carried by feet 32 of the transfer mechanism 20.

If there is a requirement for the label 17 to be rotated about axis 47 the head 24 turns the label clockwise or anti-clockwise up to 90 degrees as selected during which time suction through the ring of apertures 52 in the body 51 provides a braking action to avoid overtravel of the label. If the article 12 is identified as being of low height by virtue of a bank of photo-cells mounted in the wall of the trough in surface 14 the actuator 100 is activated in order to adjust axis 23 to the required position after the label has been captured by the head 24.. It is preferred to operate the axis 23 in only two positions, one for large height articles and one for low height articles.

Claims (8)

1. Label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles, said apparatus comprising first means for dispensing labels one at a time, second means for applying dispensed labels to articles one at a time, the second means being spaced from the first means and having a datum position for capture of dispensed labels, and transfer means for transferring labels from the first means to the second means when the latter is in its datum position, wherein the transfer means is mounted for linear reciprocal motion between the first and second means and the second means is mounted for movement in an arcuate path which includes said datum position.

2. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein said arcuate path is provided by the second means being pivotally mounted eccentrically on a rotatable disc and coupling means are provided to interconnect the pivot mount and the disc shaft whereby during rotation of the disc the orientation of the second means is maintained so that a label carried by the second means has its horizontal aspect maintained.

3. Apparatus as claimed in claim 2 wherein, the disc shaft is adjustably positionable in a direction substantially orthogonal to the direction of reciprocal motion of the transfer means, whereby the apparatus is able to apply labels to articles of different heights.

4. Apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the transfer means has its linear reciprocal motion adjustably limited in extent so that its travel in the direction of the second means is adjustably limited, whereby the apparatus is able to apply labels of different lengths.

5. Label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles, said apparatus comprising an applicator head having a pad adapted for carrying a label to be applied to an article, said head being mounted for pivotal motion about a pivot axis eccentrically mounted with respect to a rotation axis, and means for changing the vertical position of the rotation axis without altering the horizontal aspect of the pad.

6. Apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein said vertical position changing means comprises a system of interconnected mechanical levers one of which carries the rotational axis intermediate the level ends, the system being moveable by an air operated rotary vane actuator.

7. Label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles, said apparatus comprising an applicator head having a pad adapted for carrying a label to be applied to an article, said pad being carried by a rotatably mounted shaft, and actuator means coupled to the shaft and adapted to rotate the shaft by up to 90 degrees in either direction, whereby to rotate a label carried by the pad, the actuator means comprising an air operated rotary vane actuator.

8. Label applying apparatus for applying adhesive labels to articles substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.