JP2006290385A - Cartoning apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a cartoning apparatus capable of pasting flaps with a squareness of the barrel of a carton exactly exhibited after an article is packed. <P>SOLUTION: The carton 10 is carried by a conveyer 20 with its barrel 11 standing into a box shape and its flaps facing sideward in the traveling direction. The article A is put in the carton 10 while carrying, an inner flap 12 is folded, further a lower flap 13 is folded, and a hot-melt adhesive is applied to the surface of the lower flap 13. An upper flap 15 is folded onto it, and then the carton 10 is pinched by a correction belt 30 from outside of the upper flap 15. The correction belt 30 corrects the shape of the carton barrel 11 by a difference in speeds from that of the conveyer 20 while it runs side by side with the conveyer 20, and passes it over to a pressurizing belt 40. The belt 40 applies a predetermined pressure to the upper flap 15 while running side by side with the conveyer 20 to solidify the hot-melt adhesive while the carton is corrected in shape. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a carton stuffing apparatus in which a carton is opened from a folded state, an article is inserted into a carton body, and a flap is closed and bonded with an adhesive.

  Various proposals have been made for a carton stuffing apparatus for stuffing goods into a carton. FIG. 6 shows a configuration example of the carton filling device. A carton stuffing apparatus 1 shown in FIG. 6 is for packing an article A in a paper carton 10. The article A and the carton 10 are placed on separate conveyors (conveyors are not shown) and move from the left front side to the right back side in the figure. The carton 10 is placed on the conveyor by the vacuum suction type handling arm 2 in a state where the trunk portion 11 is raised. On the conveyor, the carton 10 is in a posture in which the flap portion connected to the opening portions at both ends of the body portion 11 is directed to the side in the traveling direction, that is, the posture in which one opening portion of the body portion 11 is directed in the direction of the article A. And held.

  The article A and the carton 10 run side by side, and when a certain point is reached, the article A is pushed into the carton 10 by a pusher (not shown). Then, the inner flap 12 of the carton 10 is folded by a folding means (not shown), and then the lower flap 13 is folded. A hot melt adhesive 14 is applied to the surface of the lower flap 13 in a bent state by a hot melt gun 14, and the upper flap 15 is bent thereon. In this state, the upper flap 15 is pressed to solidify the hot melt adhesive. When the bonding of the lower flap 13 and the upper flap 15 is completed, the carton 10 is discharged from the conveyor as a finished product.

Patent Documents 1-3 disclose various elemental technologies related to a carton filling device. Patent Document 1 describes an apparatus that corrects the posture of a carton when delivering a carton that has been opened to a chain conveyor. Patent Document 2 describes an apparatus for adhering glued flaps on both sides of a carton with a pinching belt. Patent Document 3 describes a device that lifts a carton in a folded state by vacuum suction and lifting.
JP-A-6-298225 (5th page, 7th page, FIGS. 10-12) JP-A-10-297617 (page 3, FIGS. 1 to 4) Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-310114 (page 3 to page 4, FIG. 1 to FIG. 2)

  When the folded carton is opened, the body is folded so that it does not maintain a right-angled corner. If left in a free state, it tends to be a parallelogram with two sides slanted. The device described in Patent Document 1 corrects the posture of the carton when the opened carton is handed over to the chain conveyor, but the correction effect disappears and deforms while being transported by the chain conveyor. Cannot be prevented.

  If it is intended to transport while maintaining the corrected shape, it may be possible to transport the carton while preventing deformation by sandwiching the body of the carton from the front and back. However, since it is necessary to insert between the claws without damaging the torso, a certain amount of clearance is indispensable between the nail and the torso, and the torso becomes an oblique parallelogram within this clearance. The situation in which the flaps were stuck together in the shape could not be avoided.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to provide a carton stuffing apparatus capable of bonding flaps in a state where the perpendicularity of the trunk of the carton is properly taken out after the goods are stuffed. To do.

  (1) In order to achieve the above object, in the present invention, the carton with the trunk portion raised is conveyed by a conveyor in a posture in which the flap portion is directed sideways in the traveling direction, and an article is inserted into the carton from the side. In a carton stuffing device for bonding a flap with an adhesive, a correction belt that touches the flap immediately after the start of bonding while running along with the conveyor and corrects the carton shape by a speed difference from the conveyor, and a shape correction from the correction belt A pressure belt is provided for receiving a used carton and applying a predetermined pressure to the flaps while running along a conveyor to solidify the adhesive in a carton shape correction state.

  According to this configuration, after the adhesive is applied to the flap of the carton and pasted together, the correction belt is brought into contact with the flap before the adhesive is hardened, and the shape of the carton is corrected by the speed difference between the correction belt and the conveyor. Because the carton after shape correction is handed over to the pressure belt and the laminating of the flap is completed, the corrected carton shape does not return to its original shape, and a carton finished product can be obtained with the straightness of the torso properly it can.

  (2) Moreover, the present invention is characterized in that, in the carton stuffing apparatus having the above-mentioned configuration, the conveyor conveys the carton body portion sandwiched by claws from the front and rear.

  According to this structure, a carton can be reliably conveyed with a nail | claw. In order not to damage the torso, even if a certain clearance is provided between the nail and the torso, it does not affect the final shape of the carton. The finished product can be obtained.

  (3) Moreover, this invention is characterized by the said correction | amendment belt being able to set the speed difference with the said conveyor to both positive and negative in the carton stuffing apparatus of the said structure.

  According to this structure, even if the trunk part of the carton is inclined in the front-rear direction with respect to the traveling direction, the correction force can be applied in a direction in which the corner of the trunk part becomes a right angle.

  According to the present invention, the correction belt is brought into contact with the flap immediately after the start of bonding, the carton shape is corrected by the speed difference between the correction belt and the conveyor, and then the pressing is performed with the pressure belt to complete the bonding. Therefore, it is possible to obtain a carton finished product in which the corners of the trunk portion are right angles.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a plan view of a main part of a carton filling device, FIGS. 2 and 3 are partial sectional views showing a first correction mode of a carton body, and FIGS. 4 and 5 show a second correction mode of a carton body. It is a fragmentary sectional view.

  FIG. 1 shows a process part after the hot melt adhesive is applied to the surface of the lower flap 13 with the hot melt gun 14 and the upper flap 15 is bent by a bending means (not shown) in the carton filling apparatus of FIG. . The conveyor 20 that transports the carton 10 includes a pair of rails 21 on which the left and right ends of the carton 10 are placed, claws 22F and 22R that sandwich the front and rear of the carton 10, and a chain 23 that has the claws 22F and 22R attached thereto. The surfaces of the claws 22F and 22R facing the carton 20 are set to be vertical. “Left and right” and “front and back” are expressions when the traveling direction of the conveyor 20 is “front”.

  A pair of straightening belts 30 are arranged on both sides of the conveyor 20. The correction belt 30 is an endless belt, and is wound around a plurality of pulleys so that the belt surface is vertical. One of the pulleys is a driving pulley 31 and the remaining pulley is an idle pulley 32. The servo motor 33 drives the driving pulley 31. The correction belt 30 runs alongside the fixed section conveyor 20.

  A pressure belt 40 is placed immediately downstream of the correction belt 30. The pressure belt 40 is also a pair of endless belts disposed on both sides of the conveyor 20, and is wound around a plurality of pulleys so that the belt surface is vertical. One of the pulleys is a driving pulley 41 and the remaining pulley is an idle pulley 42. The servo motor 43 drives the driving pulley 41. The pressure belt 40 runs alongside the fixed section conveyor 20.

  The correction belt 30 and the pressure belt 40 sandwich the upper flap 15 of the carton 10 from the outside and apply pressure while running on the conveyor 20. The pressure is relatively small for the correction belt 30 and large enough for the pressure belt 40 to firmly bond the upper flap 15 and the lower flap 13 together.

  The operation of the carton filling device configured as described above is as follows. The carton 10 enters the section of the correction belt 30 immediately after the hot-melt adhesive is applied to the surface of the lower flap 13 and the upper flap 15 is bent on the hot melt adhesive. The correction belt 30 sandwiches the carton 10 immediately after the start of bonding from both sides. At this time, the body 11 of the carton 10 has either a parallelogram (FIG. 2) inclined backward in the traveling direction or a parallelogram (FIG. 4) inclined forward in the traveling direction. Whether the carton is tilted backward or forward is determined by how the folded carton is placed and how it is opened from there, so the direction of the tilt is constant depending on the type of carton.

  2-5, only the upper flap 15 is drawn among the inner flap 12, the lower flap 13, and the upper flap 15. FIG. In order to simplify the expression of the drawing, the drawing of the inner flap 12 and the lower flap 13 is omitted.

  When the carton 10 tilted rearward is flowed as shown in FIG. 2, the traveling speed of the correction belt 30 (symbolized by a hatched arrow in the figure) is controlled by the servomotor 33. Make it faster than the speed (symbolized by a solid arrow in the figure). While the carton 10 is sandwiched between the correction belts 30 and travels, the carton 10 moves forward due to the speed difference between the correction belt 30 and the conveyor 20 (in this case, the correction belt 30 has a positive speed difference with respect to the conveyor 20). Is pressed against the nail 22F, and the shape is corrected, so that the perpendicularity of the body portion 11 is properly formed as shown in FIG. Appropriate values for the speed difference between the straightening belt 30 and the conveyor 20, the pressure applied from the straightening belt 30 to the upper flap 15, the friction coefficient of the straightening belt 30, and the like are obtained through experiments and set accordingly.

  When the carton 10 tilted forward as shown in FIG. 4 is flowed, the traveling speed of the correction belt 30 is made slower than the traveling speed of the conveyor 20. The carton 10 is pressed against the rear nail 22R by the negative speed difference that the straightening belt 30 has with respect to the conveyor 20, the shape is straightened, and the perpendicularity of the body 11 is properly formed as shown in FIG. become.

  The carton 10 whose shape has been corrected by the correction belt 30 as described above is delivered to the pressure belt 40 in the shape correction state. The pressure belt 40 sandwiches the carton 10 with a predetermined pressure and presses the upper flap 15. The pressure belt 40 travels at the same speed as the conveyor 20, and the carton 10 is conveyed without breaking the corrected shape. While being sandwiched between the pressure belts 40, the hot melt adhesive is solidified, and the shape of the carton 10 is fixed in a state where the perpendicularity of the body portion 11 is properly formed. Thereby, the finished product of the carton 10 in which the corners of the trunk portion 11 are correctly perpendicular can be obtained.

  The servo motors 33 and 43 may be replaced with a motor with a transmission. Further, in the above embodiment, the lower flap 13 is first bent and the hot melt adhesive is applied, and the upper flap 15 is overlaid thereon. On the contrary, the upper flap 15 is bent first and the hot melt adhesive is bonded. An agent may be applied and the lower flap 13 may be overlaid thereon.

    Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention.

    INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention can be used in an apparatus for attaching a flap of a carton packed with an article with an adhesive in a carton filling process of the article.

Top view of main parts of carton filling device First partial sectional view showing a first correction mode of the carton body Second partial cross-sectional view showing the first correction mode of the carton body First partial cross-sectional view showing a second correction mode of the carton body Second partial sectional view showing a second correction mode of the carton body The figure which shows the structural example of a carton stuffing apparatus

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Carton stuffing apparatus A Goods 10 Carton 11 Trunk part 12 Inner flap 13 Lower flap 14 Hot melt gun 15 Upper flap 20 Conveyor 22F, 22R Claw 30 Correction belt 40 Pressure belt

Claims (3)

In the carton stuffing device that inserts articles from the side into this carton and sticks the flap with an adhesive while conveying the carton with the trunk part in a posture with the flap part facing in the direction of travel,
The flap that contacts the flap immediately after the start of bonding while running alongside the conveyor, corrects the carton shape by the speed difference from the conveyor, and receives the shape-corrected carton from the straightening belt. A carton stuffing apparatus comprising: a pressure belt that applies a predetermined pressure to the adhesive to solidify the adhesive in a carton-shaped correction state.   The carton stuffing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the conveyor conveys the carton body portion between front and rear with claws.   The carton stuffing apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the correction belt can set a speed difference with the conveyor to either positive or negative.