Depositor Apparatus Guiding Items Into Storage Cavities
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing depositor apparatuses face issues with items scattering or lodging in unintended storage cavities and fragments attaching to the container's upper surface, leading to sealing failures and weight discrepancies.
Innovation Solution
A depositor apparatus featuring a collating mechanism, holding mechanism, and discharging/guiding mechanism that includes a cylindrical collating chute, holding array with discharge gates, and a diving funnel array, which guides items into specific storage cavities while preventing extraneous matter from adhering to the container's surface or falling into untargeted cavities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If items are discharged directly from timing hoppers or feeding chute into storage cavities, then the feeding process is simple and fast, but items scatter and attach to the container's upper surface or fall into untargeted cavities
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces guiding funnels as intermediary components between the feeding mechanism and storage cavities. These funnels receive items from the feeding chute and guide them along controlled paths into the correct storage cavities, preventing scattering and misplacement while maintaining efficient feeding speeds.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent divides the feeding system into multiple guiding funnels, each responsible for directing items to specific storage cavities. This segmentation allows precise control over item placement for each cavity while maintaining overall system efficiency.
2Device complexity
If items are fed into storage cavities without guidance, then the apparatus structure is simple, but fragments attach to the container's upper surface causing sealing failure
Solution Approach 1:
The guiding funnels serve as intermediary structures that contain and direct items during the feeding process. By providing enclosed pathways, these funnels prevent fragments from escaping and attaching to the container's upper surface, ensuring reliable sealing without significantly complicating the overall apparatus structure.
3Device complexity
If items are discharged without individual cavity guidance, then the feeding mechanism is simple, but items may accidentally fall into untargeted storage cavities causing weight discrepancies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements multiple guiding funnels, with each funnel dedicated to directing items into a specific storage cavity. This segmented approach ensures that items are precisely routed to their intended destinations, preventing accidental placement in untargeted cavities and maintaining accurate weight measurements for each cavity's contents.
Data Source
AI summary
By swinging a collating chute supplied with items, the items are held in a plurality of holding cells formed in a holding array. After all of the holding cells are filled with the items, a diving funnel array is moved downward to a position so as to contact the upper surface of a container. Then, discharge gates of the holding array are opened to discharge the items from the holding cells into a plurality of pockets formed in the container.