Medicine pouch arranging device

Abstract

Disclosed is a medicine pouch arranging device capable of uniformly spreading tablets of medicine packed in a medicine pouch, enabling inspection to determine whether a correct medicine has been packed in a series of medicine pouches which have been automatically packed on a per dose basis and successively discharged from an automatic medicine packing machine. The medicine pouch arranging device includes a transfer roller to transfer the medicine pouches, a guide plate to support the medicine pouches that are being transferred thereon, the guide plate having at least one opening, a vibrator to vibrate each of the medicine pouches that are being transferred on the guide plate by applying shock or vibration to the medicine pouch, and a sponge roller arranged above the guide plate to press each of the medicine pouches so that some vertically or obliquely erected tablets of medicine packed in the medicine pouch are laid flat.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to a medicine pouch arranging device, which is capable of spreading a medicine packed in a medicine pouch without a risk of medicine overlap and more particularly, to a medicine pouch arranging device, which is capable of uniformly spreading a plurality of tablets of medicine packed in a medicine pouch, thereby allowing a person to inspect, with the naked eye or by use of an inspection device, whether a correct medicine is packed in the medicine pouch when a variety of medicines is automatically packed.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Recently, an automatic medicine packing machine has been developed and used, in which a variety of medicines, such as tablets, capsules, etc., discharged from a plurality of medicine storage cassettes, are successively packed on a per dose basis.[0005]FIG. 21 is a schematic longitudinal sectional view of a conventional automatic medicine packing ma...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010]Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a medicine pouch arranging device, which is capable of uniformly spreading tablets of medicine packed in a medicine pouch that is being transferred toward an inspection device by directly applying shock or vibration to the medicine pouch, thereby enabling accurate inspection to determine whether a correct medicine is packed in the medicine pouch when a variety of medicines is automatically packed.

[0011]In accordance with the present invention, the above and other objects can be accomplished by applying shock or vibration to a series of successively transferred medicine pouches in the form of a band, so as to uniformly spread some tablets of medicine, which overlap each other or are vertically or obliquely erected in the respective medicine pouches. More particularly, in accordance with first to fourth embodiments of the present invention, a vibrator is operated below a medicine pouch to directly apply shock to the medicine pouch, achieving uniform arrangement of tablets of medicine packed in the medicine pouch. The first embodiment features an elliptical cross sectional rotating member, the second embodiment features a bar-shaped member to be moved up and down like a seesaw, and the third and fourth embodiments feature a pneumatic air nozzle and air cylinder respectively. The shorter the application frequency of the shock and the greater the application number of the shock, the more effective is the distribution of the tablets of medicine packed in the medicine pouch.

[0012]In accordance with fifth and sixth embodiments of the present invention, a plate member and a cam member are used to indirectly transmit shock or vibration to tablets of medicine packed in a medicine pouch, achieving effective distribution of the tablets. The fifth embodiment and the sixth embodiment employ different application directions of shock perpendicular to each other.

[0014]In accordance with a tenth embodiment of the present invention as the most effective solution, a method for applying shock to a medicine pouch and a method for vibrating a plate on which the medicine pouch is supported are combined. The shock obtained by rotation driving force of a single motor is directly applied to the medicine pouch and simultaneously, the medicine pouch is subjected to horizontal vibration and rotational vibration within a limited range, resulting in further effective distribution of tablets of medicine packed in the medicine pouch.

Problems solved by technology

Specifically, since the respective cassettes 210 of the conventional automatic medicine packing machine store dozens or hundreds of medicines, there exists a risk of an incorrect medicine being packed in the medicine pouch or a risk of a greater or smaller number of tablets of medicine than a predetermined number being packed in the medicine pouch due to, e.g., malfunctions of the machine.

Supplying a consumer with the medicine pouch enclosing the incorrect medicine may cause medicine misapplication accidents.

This is because inspection by the naked eye or a camera image may erroneously determine a correctly packed medicine pouch as a defective one when tablets of medicine packed in a medicine pouch overlap each other.

Moreover, when tablets of medicine packed in the medicine pouch overlap each other, it is technically difficult to confirm whether the tablets overlap each other or whether some of the tablets are broken.

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