in the art and has been available for many years. Nevertheless, in many fields they are susceptible to improvements. Thus, in the pharmaceutical field, where such machines are widely used, it is particularly desirable for the parts of the machines, which contact pharmaceutical materials that are to be packaged, to be as few in number and as small in size as possible and to be readily accessible for cleaning and sterilization, and refinements are constantly being designed to this end. Furthermore, and especially in pharmaceutical filling machines, it is quite advantageous for the machines to maintain a high degree of accuracy. The same aspiration exists in non-pharmaceutical fields and, there too, the quest as yet has not been satisfied.
Typical prior art filling machines are manufactured by PERRY INDUSTRIES,of the ports are subjected one after another, sequentially, to sub-atmospheric and supra-atmospheric pressure. When a port is erect, with its mouth uppermost, its mouth is exposed to the hopper. At the same time, suction is applied beneath the filter-head and thence to this port to draw the product, which is powder, from the hopper into the port. As the wheel rotates, this port leaves the hopper and passes beneath a doctor blade which brushes excess product off the top of the port while vacuum is maintained on the filled port. Continued rotation of the wheel brings the port to a downwardly extending position over a transition funnel that leads to a container for the powder. At the transition funnel, a puff of pressurized air is applied above