COMPUTER CONTROLLED LIGHT CONTACT FEEDER EMPLOYING FOUR INDEPENDENTLY DRIVEN CONVEYORS

摘要

A light contact feeder for receiving randomly spaced articles, lightly abutting the articles and delivering single articles or paired articles to individual flights of a flighted conveyor. A first feeder conveyor lightly abuts articles from a supply conveyor and delivers the abutted articles to a second feeder conveyor which times the articles relative to the flights of the flighted conveyor. A third feeder conveyor matches article speed to flighted conveyor speed and a fourth feeder conveyor phases individual articles for placement between the flights of the flighted conveyor. The fourth conveyor can also group articles in pairs and phase the pairs for placement between the flights of the flighted conveyor.