Method of and system for cigarette tipping glue skip detection and rejection

摘要

A method of and system for detecting glue skips on tipping paper used to secure filters to cigarette tobacco rods and the rejection of defective cigarettes based thereon in which a particle radiation sensor (104) is used to monitor the amount of glue (100) applied to the tipping paper (102) and a laser edge (402) detector is used to monitor for proper alignment of the tipping paper during cigarette tipping operations in a typical cigarette manufacturing machine. The signals output from the particle radiation sensor are fed to a skip detection system (107) which produces an output signal upon detecting a glue skip or a loss of glue. The glue skip or loss of glue signals as well as the paper edge detection signal produced by the laser edge detector are all fed to a programmable logic controller (116) which, upon detecting a defective condition, generates a cigarette reject signal which is fed to the cigarette rod rejection system (108) of the typical cigarette manufacturing machine in order to prevent the defective cigarettes from entering the stream of commerce.