| 摘要 |
A tray feeder including a corrugated sheet folding apparatus for rapidly feeding a plurality of corrugated sheets stored in a gravity hopper attached to the apparatus and folding the sheets into a tray shape for reception of cans or other goods, the feeding and folding of the sheets being done in a continuous, smooth and rapid flow (as opposed to the intermittent flow of the tray feeders of the prior art). The corrugated sheets are stacked in the hopper in such a manner that the upper portion of the foremost sheet is overhung in relation to the central and lower portion of the same sheet with the overhung stacking of the sheets causing the foremost sheets to separate at the upper portion thereof thereby breaking the vacuum between the upper portions of the sheets. The feeding section of the machine includes vacuum means and a split wheel roller system for withdrawing the overhung upper portions of the foremost corrugated sheets rapidly from the hopper in a timed sequence and transporting the sheet to the folding section of the apparatus. The folding section of the apparatus, located at the junction of three separate but coordinated special conveyor systems, includes folding means and hold-down means for raising the sides of the corrugated sheets to form tray cartons in timed synchronization with the feeding section. Each of the three conveyor systems includes special lugs that work in conjunction with a second, split wheel roller system to form in vertical, opposed alignment the ends of the tray carton. Also disclosed is a method of continuously and rapidly feeding corrugated sheets, stacked in a gravity feed hopper, one at a time to a plurality of feed rollers and conveyors and for rapidly folding the corrugated sheets into tray cartons for use with a packaging machine.
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