|Numéro de publication||US4674677 A|
|Type de publication||Octroi|
|Numéro de demande||US 06/914,577|
|Date de publication||23 juin 1987|
|Date de dépôt||3 oct. 1986|
|Date de priorité||4 juin 1983|
|État de paiement des frais||Caduc|
|Autre référence de publication||CA1239896A, CA1239896A1, DE3320266A1, DE3320266C2, EP0128373A2, EP0128373A3, EP0128373B1|
|Numéro de publication||06914577, 914577, US 4674677 A, US 4674677A, US-A-4674677, US4674677 A, US4674677A|
|Cessionnaire d'origine||Trautwein Hans Hermann|
|Exporter la citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Citations de brevets (10), Référencé par (7), Classifications (5), Événements juridiques (4)|
|Liens externes: USPTO, Cession USPTO, Espacenet|
This is a continuation of copending application Ser. No. 616,444 filed June 1, 1984 now abandoned.
The invention relates to an apparatus for collecting empty bottles and making an accounting of them, having an intake zone for feeding single bottles of any arbitrary size into a common receptacle, the bottom of which can be changed from an initial, upper position down to a final, lower position in accordance with the number of bottles that have been placed in the receptacle.
Apparatuses of this kind are intended to promote the re-use of bottles and thus to help save valuable raw materials.
Known apparatuses of this kind have certain disadvantages, however, especially because they require considerable space and are time-consuming to use.
For example, an apparatus according to German laid-open application DE-OS 1 574575 has a receptacle with a bottom that can be lowered, and each time a bottle is placed in the receptacle the bottom is lowered by a specific, predetermined amount. The distance between the bottles in the receptacle and the opening through which the bottles are introduced can become so great, however, that there is a danger of breakage if further bottles are deposited. Emptying the receptacle, which is mounted in a fixed manner in the apparatus, is as complicated as it is time-consuming.
These disadvantages are overcome by the invention by embodying the receptacle as a carriage that can be inserted into an outer frame; its bottom is displaceable in height inside the frame by means of a chain drive, and the height of this bottom at a given time can be influenced by means of the uppermost bottle in the receptacle, which touches an end switch for the drive motor of the chain drive.
As a result, breakage of bottles deposited in the receptacle is avoided, and because it is easy to replace a full receptacle with an empty one, the apparatus is substantially simpler to operate.
The invention will be better understood and further objects and advantages thereof will become more apparent from the ensuing detailed description of a preferred embodiment taken in conjunction with the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of the apparatus as a whole;
FIG. 2 is a detail of the chain drive for the bottom; and
FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram for the apparatus.
A receptacle 1, which is embodied as a carriage, is located in an outer frame or stand 2. A bottom 3 of the receptacle 1 has laterally projecting support tangs 4, which are provided with catches 5 that loosely engage a chain drive 6. A drive motor 7 serves via cog wheels 8 to raise and lower the bottom 3. An upper end switch 9 limits the upward movement of the bottom 3. An ultrasound head 10 serves to ascertain the size and shape of a bottle introduced into an open sector 11 of an intake rotor 12, and the figures defining the size and shape are stored in a computer 13. Via closed relays 14 and 15 or 27 and 15, the intake rotor 12 can be advanced by a motor 41, until the current is interrupted once again by a tripping pin 16, which comes into engagement with a notch 17 of a disc 18 secured on the shaft of the intake rotor 12 in order to open a switch to the circuit of motor 41. At the same time, the direction of rotation of the intake rotor 12 is changed by the introduction of a further empty bottle, so that as the empty bottles slide to the left or right in alternation along chutes 19 they fill the receptacle 1 uniformly, thereby preventing a pyramid of empty bottles from forming and becoming a source of bottle breakage. To promote the passage of the bottles out of the sectors 11 into the receptacle 1, guide lips 22 are disposed on the outer end of the faces 21 defining the sectors 11 and guide flaps 24 are disposed on the housing 23 surrounding the intake rotor 12.
Light beam emitters 25 and 26 that produce a light controlled switch are also disposed on the housing 23, on both sides of the intake rotor 12, and upon the passage of a bottle past them, they emit a corresponding pulse to the computer 13. If a bottle comes to a stop on the bottle chute 19, then one of the light beam emitters 25 or 26 opens the circuit of current to the intake rotor until the bottle chute 19 is again free and the bottle that had been in the way has rolled into the receptacle 1. The intake rotor 12 changes its direction of rotation after each intake of a bottle, under the influence of the relays 14, 27 and 15. During the rotational movement of the intake rotor 12, the relay 15 is shut off via the relay 14 or 27 until such time as the light emitter 25 or 26 is interrupted by a bottle that has come to a stop on the bottle chute 19. If the light beam of emitter 25 is interrupted, the relay 27 can no longer respond, and similarly if the light beam of emitter 26 is interrupted, the relay 14 can no longer respond. The direction of rotation of the intake rotor 12 is then maintained without change until the second light emitter 25 or 26 is interrupted again.
The interruption of the light beam of emitters 25 and 26 simultaneously causes the relay 28 to respond and to put the drive motor 7 into gear and initiate a downward movement of the bottom 3. After the light beam of emitter 25, 26 is released, this downward movement is continued by a time delay relay 29, in order to avoid uncontrolled upward and downward movement.
The relay 28 is connected via the two light beam emitters 25, 26 in series with the delaying relay 29. The duration of the followup time occasioned by the relay 29 during this process is in accordance with the diameter of the largest acceptable empty bottle, plus approximately 15 mm. After this followup time has elapsed, the bottom 3 moves upward again until such time as the uppermost bottle located on the bottom touches one of the two tripping vanes 30 or 31, which act upon end switches 32 or 33 which are disposed under the bottle chutes 19. The appropriate rotational direction of the drive motor 7 from the downward movement via closing of the relay 28 to the upward movement is attained in that after the followup time has elapsed, the relay 28 opens, and the end switches 32 and 33 have been closed by the downward movement that has taken place previously. This, however, causes a relay 34 to close, making the bottom 3 move upward once again until one of the end switches 32 or 33 on the tripping vanes 30 or 31 is opened. Because of this provision, an extremely small distance is attained between the empty bottles already introduced into the receptacle 1 and the bottle chute 19, thereby preventing breakage of the bottles.
Once the receptacle 1 has become almost full of empty bottles and the bottom 3 has been almost completely lowered, a signal is triggered by closing the switch 35, indicating that the now-full receptacle 1 should be replaced with an empty one.
Once the bottom 3 then attains its lower end position, the control system becomes voltage-free or completely turned off by means of an end switch 36 which opens the main circuit, and a corresponding signal appears at a display element 37, indicating that the bottle intake has been blocked off.
A closure of a switch 38 via a door lock 39 causes the drive motor 7 to operate, even if the end switch 36 should not yet be closed, and the relay 28 then takes precedence in operating the motor until the end switch 36 is reached. As a result it is assured that after a door in a housing (not otherwise shown) is opened, the bottom 3 will always be in its lowermost end position.
The empty bottle collecting and accounting apparatus can be added onto by providing that the figures ascertained by the computer 13 be transmitted to a printer 40, which ascertains the amount of the bottle deposit that is to be expected and immediately imparts this information.
The foregoing relates to a preferred exemplary embodiment of the invention, it being understood that other variants and embodiments thereof are possible within the spirit and scope of the invention, the latter being defined by the appended claims.
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|US1139436 *||2 juin 1913||11 mai 1915||Edwin Netter||Garbage-reservoir.|
|US2296215 *||23 mars 1939||15 sept. 1942||Layher Clifford C||Display container|
|US2632588 *||30 janv. 1952||24 mars 1953||Jr John Hoar||Counting and packaging apparatus|
|US2696349 *||24 juil. 1953||7 déc. 1954||Leopold Baumstark||Egg counting mechanism|
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|US4276467 *||17 juil. 1978||30 juin 1981||The Mead Corporation||Apparatus for receiving empty beverage containers|
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|GB782380A *||Titre non disponible|
|Brevet citant||Date de dépôt||Date de publication||Déposant||Titre|
|US5178322 *||16 mai 1991||12 janv. 1993||Med-Safe Systems, Inc.||Multiple configuration disposable sharps container system|
|US8109378||5 juil. 2006||7 févr. 2012||Primo Water Corporation||Bottled water distribution method and bottle return apparatus|
|US8387771||4 juin 2008||5 mars 2013||Primo Water Corporation||Bottled water distribution method and bottle return apparatus|
|US9169070 *||29 déc. 2014||27 oct. 2015||Thomas H. Miyashiro||System and apparatus for handling deposit beverage containers|
|US20070012541 *||5 juil. 2006||18 janv. 2007||Primo Water Corporation||Bottled water distribution method and bottle return apparatus|
|US20080308383 *||4 juin 2008||18 déc. 2008||Primo Water Corporation||Bottled water distribution method and bottle return apparatus|
|US20150114793 *||29 déc. 2014||30 avr. 2015||Thomas H. Miyashiro||System and apparatus for handling deposit beverage containers|
|Classification aux États-Unis||232/43.3, 232/43.1|
|21 nov. 1990||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|31 janv. 1995||REMI||Maintenance fee reminder mailed|
|25 juin 1995||LAPS||Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees|
|5 sept. 1995||FP||Expired due to failure to pay maintenance fee|
Effective date: 19950628