DE20303945U1 - Storage latch conveyor - Google Patents

Description

TER MEER STEINMEISTER & PARTNER GBR PATENT ATTORNEYS - EUROPEAN PATENT ATTORNEYS

Dr. Nicolaus ter Meer, Dipl.-Chem. Peter Urner, Dipl.-Phys. Gebhard Merkle, Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Mauerkircherstrasse 45 D-81 679 MUNICH Helmut Steinmeister, Dipl.-Ing. Manfred Wiebusch

Artur-Ladebeck-Strasse 51 D-33617 BIELEFELD

PEPPOl / 03 / G

St/zs

11.3.2003

Petra Schneuing

Mörikestraße 5 33803 Steinhagen

ACCUMULATION PAWL CONVEYOR

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LOCKING PAWL CONVEYOR

The invention relates to a pawl conveyor for clothes hanger carriers, which are provided with two hooks that can be suspended one behind the other on a transport rail, with a drivable chain guided above the transport rail, on which there are dragged, upwardly and downwardly pivotable transport pawls, which have a cam surface on their underside and a claw behind this.

A pawl conveyor of this type is known, for example, from utility model 296 21 786. The known conveyor has transport pawls with a cam surface that is curved out so much that the claws of the corresponding pawls, when the cam surface of this pawl runs onto a coat hanger, are raised so far that they can also be lifted over two coat hanger hooks that are interlocked and lying one above the other. In this way, malfunctions caused by coat hangers that are interlocked can be avoided. With the help of conveyors of this type, items of clothing hanging on coat hangers can be transported directly with these coat hangers over transport rails without the need for a trolley or other collection device for coat hangers.

Conveyor pawls of the type described enable accumulation operations in that they are lifted up via their cam surfaces when they come into contact with a coat hanger and release the coat hanger that has been brought along. This means that the hangers that are being transported are released at the end of a accumulation and that the accumulation is gradually reduced from the hanger in front.

A similar conveyor is known from DE 299 08 461 Ul, in which coat hangers are not transported directly over the transport rails, but several coat hangers are hung in a group, for example corresponding to a consignment of related items of clothing, on a collective carrier, which in turn is hung on the transport rail with two hooks.

Naturally, it must be ensured that the transport hooks grasp these collection carriers at their front hook in the transport direction, since a

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me of the rear hook would make the so-called "power and free" operation impossible and would also lead to malfunctions, particularly at switches, in congestion areas, etc. In the case of the collective carrier according to DE 299 08 461 Ul, this is achieved in that the rear hook of the collective carrier has a smooth surface of such a size that the claw of the transport hook cannot penetrate, while the front hook of the collective carrier has an engagement opening open from above into which the claws of the transport hooks engage. The transport hooks therefore run over the rear hooks of the collective carriers and grip the front hooks. On the other hand, the transport hooks can be lifted up by the rear hooks of the collective carriers so that they release a collective carrier when they run into a collective carrier standing on the transport rail. The possibility of "power and free" operation is therefore given.

The above solution is only feasible if the collection carriers are designed accordingly. They can also only be used in a specific transport direction, namely so that the hook with the access opening is at the front in the transport direction.

However, there are also transport systems with collective carriers of the type described, which are intended to be universally usable and therefore also orientable in both directions.

The invention is therefore based on the object of creating a conveyor of the above type which allows collection carriers of the type described to be transported on transport rails with the aid of transport hooks, without the hooks of the collection carrier having to be specially aligned to the possibility of transport on transport rails.

This task is solved in a pawl conveyor of the above type in that the transport hooks are dimensioned in such a way that when the cam surface of the transport hooks runs onto the front hook of the collecting carrier, the claw is lifted over the rear hook of the collecting carrier.

Since the claw is hooked by the front hook of the collecting carrier over the rear

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hook, it is not necessary to design the rear hook of the collecting carrier in such a way that it is overrun by the claw. The transport system according to the invention can therefore be used for collecting carriers of any type. On the other hand, the front hook of the collecting carrier can be reliably grasped by the claw if it is only ensured that the front claw is designed in such a way that it can grasp the front hooks of conventional collecting carriers in any case.

In the following, preferred embodiments of the invention are explained in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 shows a section of a conveyor according to the invention,

with a transport hook that carries a collecting carrier;

Fig. 2 is a corresponding illustration and shows how a transport

hook is lifted over the rear hook of the collecting carrier.

In Fig. 1, 10 designates a transport rail, which can, for example, have a U-profile that is open at the top. Above the transport rail 10, a chain guide profile 12 runs parallel to and at a distance from it, in which a drivable chain (not shown) is guided. On this chain there are drivers 14, on which transport pawls 16 are suspended, which can pivot in a horizontal axis 18 that is directed transversely to the conveying direction. The conveying direction of the chain (not shown) runs from right to left in Fig. 1. The transport pawls 16 are therefore dragged by the chain, i.e. at least the majority of the length of the transport pawls 16 lies behind the driver 14 in the conveying direction. At the rear end, in relation to the conveying direction, the transport pawls 16 have a claw 20 that grips around a recess 22 that enters from below from behind.

In the transport direction in front of the claw 20, i.e. on the left in Fig. 1, there is a cam surface 24 on the lower side of the transport pawl 16, which is shown slightly curved downwards in Fig. 1. In the position of Fig. 1, this cam surface can enter the U-profile of the transport rail 10 from above.

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In the illustration in Fig. 1, a collective carrier 26 hangs on the transport rail, which is intended to hold a number of coat hangers on a carrier rod 28. Hooks 30, 32 extend vertically upwards from both end regions of the carrier rod 28 and are hung from above on the transport rail 10 as shown in Fig. 1.

The hooks 30,32 can be connected to the support rod 28 by means of swivel joints 34, 36 so that the hooks can be rotated by 180° if the collective support 26 is to be used in the opposite orientation. 10

The swivel joints 34,36 can also be advantageous for conveyor tracks with tight curve radii.

In the embodiment shown, the support rod 28 consists of an upper and a lower rod 38,40, which are connected at both ends. The double layer and connecting struts 42,44,46 between the upper and lower rods 38,40 give the support rod 28 a relatively high degree of rigidity. The connecting struts can also be used to separate the coat hangers transported on a support rod (not shown in the drawing).

Fig. 2 shows the situation that arises when a transport latch 16 runs onto a stationary collecting carrier during movement from right to left in Fig. 2. The cam surface 24 on the underside of the transport latch has the effect that the transport latch 16 is initially increasingly raised with the aid of the cam surface 24 as it runs onto the rear hook 32. It therefore always releases any additional collecting carrier that may have been brought along, which is shown in dashed lines in Fig. 2, at a sufficient distance from the collecting carrier shown in solid lines in Fig. 2. After the cam surface has slid over the rear hook 32, the cam surface is grasped by the front hook 30 and the transport latch 16 is raised by this or held at a sufficient height. The dimensions are selected so that the claw is lifted over the rear hook 32 by the interaction of the front hook 30 and the cam surface 24, as shown in Fig. 2. This ensures that the transport pawls are not

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n case, the rear hook of the collective carrier is caught. When a retaining latch 16 with a collective carrier approaches a stationary collective carrier from behind, the retaining latch 16 runs onto the rear hook 32. It is thereby raised until the claw 20 is released from the front hook 30 of the following collective carrier (not shown). This collective carrier is released at a distance from the rear carrier 32 of the collective carrier shown that corresponds to the distance between the two hooks of the collective carriers.

Claims (1)

Accumulating pawl conveyor for clothes hanger collecting carriers 26 , which are provided with two hooks ( 30 , 32 ) which can be suspended one behind the other on a transport rail (10), with a drivable chain guided above the transport rail ( 10 ), on which there are dragged, upwardly and downwardly pivotable transport pawls ( 16 ), which have a cam surface ( 24 ) on their underside and a claw ( 20 ) behind this, characterized in that the transport pawls ( 16 ) are dimensioned such that when the cam surface 24 of the transport pawls runs onto the front hook ( 30 ) of the collecting carrier, the claw ( 20 ) is lifted over the rear hook ( 32 ) of the collecting carrier.