Title: Hopper feeder for singly dispensing short rods or tubes

• Summary
• Claims
• Description
• View all

Abstract: For feeding short rods, which term includes tubes, such as clinical thermometer tubes with bulbs at one end, a feeding hopper has downwardly-converging bottom walls terminating in an elongated gap between their lower edges forming an elongated slot. Reciprocable horizontally beneath the slot is fluid-pressure-operated ejector plunger which feeds, one at a time, the short rods to a horizontal receiver composed of a pair of spaced parallel guide bars separated by a distance large enough to pass the rod but to detain the bulb, whereupon the rod pivots around the detained bulb to swing downward into the slot and comes to rest between the bars with the bulb uppermost and the rod suspended vertically from the bars. Agitating mechanism including a pair of alternately-reciprocable agitator slides mounted side by side in spaced relationship beneath the gap to closely select and receive the rods one at a time by moving upward and downward through the slot and, also intermittently shakes the stack of rods in the hopper so as to force them into mutually parallel horizontal positions, thereby preventing jamming of the rods in or arching together above the slot.


Do you think this is a good invention? Vote now: