| 摘要 |
A flange feeder utilizes a pair of left and right handed gripper assemblies mounted to an overhead horizontal transport drive to successively convey a pair of flange members into overhead vertical alignment with left and right handed infeed sections of a longitudinal conveyor leading into a chords and webs assembly machine. The pair of flanges are successively conveyed from a lateral flange conveyor into two or more sets of rotating grippers mounted on a common rotating shaft. The rotating grippers are positioned to clamp opposite sides of the flange member which is positioned in alignment therewith by means of stops located at the discharge end of the lateral conveyor. The clamped flange is then rotated upwards into vertical alignment with an open one of the left and right handed overhead grippers. Initially, the flange is fed into the right hand gripper and the left hand gripper is indexed into operative position as the rotating grippers return to grip a next in-line flange. The arrangement of the grippers to simultaneously grip or release a flange enables flange stock to be gripped, rotated, transported and then fed into the infeed conveyor in positively controlled and predictably oriented manner.
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