Method of and apparatus for making a trimmed stream of tobacco fibers or the like

US4926886A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Korber AG · DE

Inventors

• Heinz-Christen Lorenzen · Bargteheide, DE
• Uwe Heitmann · Hamburg, DE
• Wolfgang Siems · Hamburg, DE
• Peter Pinck · Bargteheide, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 28, 1988
• Grant date: May 22, 1990
• Expiry date: Jul 28, 2008

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y10S131/906
• WIPO field: Other consumer goods
• WIPO sector: Other fields

Abstract

A stream of tobacco fibers is formed in a channel by showering the fibers against the underside of the lower reach of a foraminous belt conveyor which cooperates with a suction chamber to attract the fibers and to advance the stream past a trimming station where the surplus of fibers is removed by an adjustable equalizing device. The density of the stream is monitored upstream of the trimming station, and the thus obtained signals which are indicative of the density of successive increments of the stream are used to adjust the equalizing device so that the density of the trimmed stream is maintained within a desired range. Monitoring of density upstream of the trimming station ensures that the position of the equalizing device is properly adjusted not later than when the monitored increments of the stream reach the trimming station.