| 摘要 |
Apparatus for inserting a charge of nested, uniformly-shaped articles into a container such as a cannister. A charge of the articles, which may be uniformly-shaped articles and may be fragile articles such as farinaceous food chips, is separated by a metering unit from a supply of such articles and transferred into a hollow sleeve member. The filled sleeve member is rotated to a container-receiving position in which a container, such as a cardboard or paperboard cannister having one open end, is positioned over the filled sleeve member. The filled sleeve and container are then rotated to a release position in which the container, with the charge of nested, uniformly-shaped articles therein, is released from the sleeve member onto a receiver such as a conveyor which moves the filled container for further processing, for example purging with an inert gas and closing the open end. The metering unit may be, by way of example, a conveyor having a pair of gates which operate to separate a charge of the desired size from the supply of nested, uniformly-shaped articles. The metering unit can include a discharge portion pivotally attached to the conveyor main portion and contacting the sleeve member to assure against any of the articles failing to enter the sleeve member, with the discharge portion pivoting from the path of travel of the sleeve member as the sleeve member is rotated from the filling position. A plurality of hollow sleeve members can extend from a rotatable hub to move between angularly spaced filling, container-receiving, and container-discharge positions.
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