Stacking plant for newspapers
The present invention relates to a plant for stacking news papers including a collection station and conveying means for advancing a stream of mutually overlapping newspapers towards the collection station, a finished stack having individual sheaves containing a predetermined number of newspapers where the sheaves are mutually, laterally displaced.
In the lateral displacement of sheaves of newspapers in stacking, for separating the different sheaves in relation to each other, the type of plant has so far been used where either special gripping means from above lift the respective sheaf of newspapers and put them down one above the other in a laterally displaced pattern, or with the help of a nip adapted for laterally displacing ready-counted sheaves and feeding these one upon the other to a collection station, the nip being formed with the aid of two pairs of laterally displaceable rolls at one end of a conveyor.
The object of the present invention is to. provide a plant of the kind mentioned in the introduction, which in relation to the above-mentioned already known plants is very cheap and can also be used as a supplementary item to large expensive bundling plants. What is essentially distinguishing for the invention is that the conveyor means comprises two separate conveyors arranged in tandem, of which at least one is turnable laterally in relation to the other, between the conveyors there being arranged a newspaper counter or sensor, coupled to control electroncis which are settable for counting an optional number of newspapers and which is adapted, after a predetermined number of newspapers has passed, to actuate means for laterally turning the conveyor in question together with the stream of newspapers on it a predetermined angle. The invention is
described in detail below with reference to the appended drawings, on which
Fig. 1 is a schematic illustration of a preferred embodiment of the invention, and Fig. 2 illustrates how a stack of newspapers appears seen directly from the front in a plant in accordance with the invention.
As schematically illustrated in Fig. 1, the inventive stacking plant comprises two belt conveyors, namely an approach conveyor 1 and a receiving conveyor 2. The approach conveyor 1 is turnable about a shaft 3 arranged at its free end, and can swivel backwards and forwards between two end positions with the aid of a compressed air cylinder 4. At the juncture between conveyors 1 and 2 there is a conventional type of newspaper counter 5. The speed of the conveyors 1 and 2 is sensed with the aid of a transducer 6 and the entire plant is controlled with the aid of electronics 7, obtaining control signals from the newspaper counter 5 and the speed transducer 6. A stream of mutually overlapping newspapers 8 is conveyed on the conveyors 1 and 2 towards a collection station 9 arranged on the receiving conveyor 2, where a stack 10 of newspapers is arranged to be formed. The stack 10 comprises a plurality of individual sheaves which are laterally displaced in relation to each other. The respective sheaf 11 comprises the number of newspapers 8 set on the control electronics 7.
When a predetermined number of newspapers 8 has passed the counter 5, an electrically operated valve 16 obtains an output signal which activates the cylinder 4 for laterally turning the approach conveyor 1 about 25 mm. The newspaper 8' is simultaneously retained by a roller 12 which is spring biassed towards the end pulley means 13 of the receiving conveyor 2, thereby forming a nip 14. The news
paper 8' thus does not accompany the lateral movement of the approach conveyor 1. The newspaper 8'' and subsequent newspapers are retained by a roller 15, situated above the approach conveyor 1 and spring biassed towards it. The pressure roller 15 and the newspapers on the conveyor 1 retained by it consequently accompany the lateral movement of conveyor 1. The result of this is that the different sheaves 11 of newspapers will be alternately displaced in relation to each other (see Fig. 2) with the predetermined number of newspapers in each individual sheaf, and consequently no manual counting is necessary.