| 摘要 |
Apparatus for moving empty and filled trays for groups of rod-shaped smokers' products to an emptying station and from a filling station has first and second sources of empty trays, a receiver for emptied trays, first, second and third storage facilities for filled trays, a magazine which supplies filled trays to the emptying station, and an elevator which can transport empty, filled and emptied trays between the different levels of the sources, receiver, storage facilities and magazine. A control unit causes the elevator to deliver empty trays from one of the sources to the filling station and to move filled trays from one of the storage facilities to the magazine in a sequence such that each filled tray leaving the magazine for the emptying station remains in the apparatus at least for a predetermined minimum period of time which is necessary to ensure that the products can be evacuated from the respective filled trays without affecting their appearance and/or other desirable characteristics. For example, the minimum period should suffice to permit adequate setting of plasticizer in the filter mouthpieces for tobacco smoke.
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