ROTARY PAD TURNER

摘要

Apparatus for turning pads through an angle of 90.degree. about an axis perpendicular to their plane as they are orbited with a drum from a pad pickup station to a pad transfer station. The drum has a plurality of circumferentially spaced apart supports inside of it. A hollow shaft extends radially out of each support and has a vacuum pickup shoe on it. A pinion is fastened concentrically to the hollow shaft and a gear in the support turns the pinion. A cam follower engages in the groove of a stationary circular cam. As the drum rotates the cam follower arrives in a part of the cam groove which turns the gear and results in the hollow shaft and the vacuum shoe being turned through an angle of 90.degree. as the shoe is orbited from the pad pickup station to the pad transfer station. Flexible tubes connect ports in the base of the drum to the hollow vacuum shaft. The ports run over a curved groove in a stationary vacuum platen at times when vacuum must be applied to the shoe and run off of the groove and cut off the vacuum of the shoe at the pad transfer station where pads are transferred to a rotating vacuum drum.