GB670116A - Improvements in or relating to tobacco cutting machines - Google Patents

Abstract

670,116. Cutting tobacco. MOLINS, D. W., and MOLINS MACHINE CO., Ltd. July 25, 1950 [July 26, 1949], No. 19637/49. Class 28 (ii). [Also in Groups I and XXX] In a tobacco-cutting machine such as described in Specification 588,129, [Group I), the density of the tobacco fed by endless belt conveyer to the mouth, where cutting takes place, is maintained fairly constant by a heavy feeler plate 31 bearing on the passing tobacco and so moving up and down with its density, such movement being used to vary the speed of the conveyers which feed the tobacco to the mouth. Such movement of the feeler 31 actuates the clutch fork 48 of a change speed gear to select the approximately correct speed of the endless belt conveyers as follows. The feeler 31 is a movable part of the top wall of the feed channel. When 31 drops its coupling bracket 34 allows lever 35 to pivot down whereby a link 37 presses lever 38 to rock the shaft 39 clockwise. An arm 45 moving with 39 presses the mid joint of toggle arms 43 and 44 over their dead centre against a spring 69. Spring 69 thus causes the face 44B, Fig. 3, of 44 to strike a face 48B of clutch fork 48 which being pivoted slides the sleeve 47 of the gear change to engage a higher gear to speed up the endless belt conveyers. As the tobacco leaves fall through a shoot on to the first conveyer they are partly. compacted by the usual oscillation of a pivoted wall of the shoot. Gear changing.-When the collar 47, Fig. 6, of the clutch fork 48 is moved axially automatically as above, a groove 62 in it which houses a ring of balls 63 is shifted so that the balls 63 are pressed hard against the interior of a sleeve 55 which has indentation for each ball. The higher gear 51 screwed to sleeve 51 is thus driven to drive through gear 49 the shaft 50 of the conveyer chains at a higher speed. Reverse movement of the collar 47 by the clutch fork 48 presses another ring of ball 65 against indentations in a sleeve 66 carrying a smaller bevel gear 54 which through gear 53 drives the shaft 50 of the conveyers at a lower speed.