Apparatus for widening and slowing down a stream of upright bottles

摘要

A container rearranging station wherein bottles or other containers enter in single file and are discharged with several of them abreast of each other. The station is comprised of three parallel running conveyor sections. All the sections are tilted at the same angle so as to provide a smooth inclined plane. A supply conveyor on which the bottles arrive in single file is the highest of those on the inclined plane and runs at the highest speed of any of them. The adjacent intermediate conveyor runs at a slightly slower speed and the adjacent lower most discharge conveyors run at a uniform but still slower speed. Inclination angles of the conveyors between the input region of the station and the output region where the containers are abreast are preferably adjustable between 8 DEG and 11 DEG so that the containers drift from the supply conveyor through the intermediate conveyor to the discharge conveyor. On the highest supply conveyor side there is a guide surface or deflector which is operative to deflect the containers off of the supply conveyor if they do not drift off early enough. Only bottles with exceptionally rough bottoms generally reach the deflector. Most of the containers slide off of the supply conveyor randomly before they reach the deflector. Thus, container collisions and noise are substantially reduced.