Mechanism for orienting packaging elements such as container caps

摘要

Bottle caps are properly oriented and deposited into a bottle capping machine by an apparatus having a rotating disk which carries caps from a cap receptacle through a sorting zone to a discharge zone. In the sorting zone, improperly oriented caps fall from the disk back into the cap receptacle. Only properly oriented caps are moved by the rotating disk to the discharge zone where such caps are discharged by a discharge plate into the bottle capping machine.

主权项

1. An apparatus for orienting circular container caps comprising:
a. a housing; b. an alignment disk assembly mounted for rotation within the housing about an axis of rotation angled from the horizontal at a first angle, said alignment disk assembly having (i) a cap engagement surface comprising an inner planar disk member and an outer planar disk member of differing diameter concentrically joined together and offset from each other to define a cap support ledge, (ii) a plurality of flights secured to and projecting outwardly from the outer disk member and having a predetermined circumferential spacing therebetween, (iii) cap support pockets defined by adjacent pairs of said plurality of flights, the outer disk member and the cap support ledge, the predetermined circumferential spacing between the flights of adjacent pairs of flights being greater than the diameter of caps to be oriented and less than twice the diameter of the caps to be oriented, and (iv) a plurality of paddles secured to the inner disk member; c. a cap receptacle mounted to the housing and adapted to funnel caps toward the alignment disk; and d. a discharge plate mounted to the housing and adapted to redirect caps from the alignment disk, said discharge plate having a top inclined edge; wherein when a plurality of caps are loaded into the cap receptacle and the alignment disk assembly is rotating, at least some of the caps enter the pockets of the alignment disk assembly in a loading zone and are carried by such pockets through an elevator zone to a sorting zone, and upon reaching the sorting zone (i) properly oriented caps are carried by the pockets to the discharge zone where they are redirected by the discharge plate such that the caps move down the top inclined edge of the discharge plate and exit the apparatus, and (ii) improperly oriented caps fall from the pockets back into the cap receptacle.