Article-deflecting switching means for a system of article conveyors

US4317656A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Karl Heinz Stiegler · DE

Inventors

• Ehrhart Schulze · Stuttgart, DE
• Michael Berg · Waiblingen, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Feb 1, 1980
• Grant date: Mar 2, 1982
• Expiry date: Feb 1, 2000

Classification

• Technology area (CPC B): Performing Operations; Transporting
• CPC primary: B65H2404/261
• WIPO field: Handling
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

The invention contemplates an improved deflection-switch mechanism for a conveyor system which continuously handles a succession of articles, such as like sheets or sheet-like workpieces, on a first conveyor, and which sorts them in alternation to one and then to the other of two further conveyors, whereby in each of the further conveyors the sorted articles are more greatly separated and therefore can be subjected to more effective deceleration prior to their uniformly stacked accumulation. The deflection mechanism of the switch is vacuum-operative upon individual articles, relying upon their spatial distribution in the first conveyor as a basic determinant of whether a particular article is to be automatically deflected or switched, by effectively synchronous commutation, into one or into the other of the two further-conveyor paths. The switching deflection is accomplished continuously and without imposing any limitation upon the smooth high-speed transport of incoming articles to their finally stacked destination.