The present invention relates to an apparatus for sorting packages, of the type comprising means for supplying the packages to a manipulation and orientation station.
The present invention further relates to a method for putting the packages in step.
In the sector of packaging and palletising plants, a well known need is that of manipulating and/or orienting packages containing products treated on lines for their transfer and/or processing, usually positioned upstream of said manipulating station.
Said requirement is particularly acute in plants for treating containers for drinks, for instance cans and bottles, made of glass or plastic, for containing water, beer or wine. In particular, the packages in question may be crates, cartons, bundles or clusters.
The patent EP 1046598 discloses an apparatus for manipulating packages of containers, typically bottles or cans, in order to arrange them according to a predefined configuration to allow them to be transported on pallets.
This apparatus is provided with a station for aligning and separating the packages, provided with a plurality of parallel and diagonal guides, on each of which slides a grip element. Each grip element takes a package and orients it according to the final configuration to be obtained.
The packages are supplied to the aforesaid station in one or more rows, by means of a conveyor belt.
The velocity of sliding of the grip elements on the diagonal guides is controlled by a processor and it may vary according to the velocity of advance of the conveyor belt, in order to enable the grip elements to follow the various packages and to manipulate them in such a way as to make them assume a correct positioning angle relative to the direction of motion of the belt.
The apparatus described above has the important drawback of requiring as many grip elements are there are rows of packages on the conveyor belt. The grip elements are constrained to move diagonally and therefore they cannot follow packages which simultaneously reach the alignment and separation station. Precisely, said drawback is due to the fact that the grip element have a single actual degree of freedom of motion which corresponds to the diagonal motion along the guide.
In accordance with a second known prior art solution, apparatuses exist which are capable exclusively of rotating the packages by means of fixed impediments against which the packages themselves impact asymmetrically. The asymmetry of the impact causes a rotation of each package about its substantially vertical barycentric axis.
An apparatus of this type has the important drawback of compromising the integrity of the packages and above all of the objects contained therein. This drawback is particularly felt in the beer processing industry, because the packages contain glass bottles within which is present beer that was just pasteurised (and thus is hot) which, along with the low thickness of the glass, considerably increases the fragility of the bottles and the consequent risk of breakage.