JPH0311994B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a capping method, and more particularly to a method for capping a bottle by screwing a fly screw cap onto a bottle having a fly screw portion.

As shown in FIG. 1, a bottle 1 is known in which a threaded portion is discontinuously formed in a neck portion 1a and has a fly screw portion 2 consisting of a plurality of (four in the figure) independent threads 2a. ing. The thread 2a has a base 2a ₁ ,
It has a horizontal portion 2a ₂ and an inclined portion 2a ₃ extending obliquely upward. 3 in FIG. 2 shows an example of a fly screw cap used to seal a bottle having such a fly screw part 2. A plurality of (four in the figure) independent screws 5 are provided. The screw 5 extends at a slight angle with respect to the direction perpendicular to the axis.
Note that 6 is a liner made of paper, for example.

Normally, the capping of the fly screw cap 3 involves holding the cap in a hanging capping head, lowering the capping head while rotating, and screwing the capping head into the bottle 1 fixed below. It is done by twisting. In this case, depending on the timing and rotational speed of the lowering of the capping head, and the relationship between the position of the thread 2a, the head end 5a of the screw 5 of the cap 3 rotating in the direction of arrow A, as shown in FIG. It may come into contact with the tip 2a ₃ ' of the inclined portion 2a ₃ of the thread 2a of No. 1. In such a case, the capping head stops rotating and no further screwing is performed, resulting in a bottle with a poor seal. According to the experience of the present inventors, the incidence of such types of poorly sealed bottles during conventional conventional work is 1 to 5%, which has a large negative impact on productivity.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to prevent the threaded portion of the bottle from tightening when the fly screw cap is screwed onto a bottle having a fly screw portion and the bottle is capped. The objective is to prevent the occurrence of poorly sealed bottles due to the head end of the cap screw matching the tip.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a method for screwing a fly screw cap onto a bottle having a fly screw portion and capping the bottle, in which the fly screw cap is gripped by a hanging capping head, and the popper head is attached to the bottle. approach the bottle while rotating, and after the lower end of the cap reaches the upper end of the bottle, release the grip on the cap at least once and raise the cap to a slight height. The present invention provides a capping method characterized in that the capping material is allowed to fall freely, and then grasped again and screwed together.

The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The capping device 10 shown in FIG. 4 includes a turret 11 that continuously rotates in the direction of arrow B via a rotating shaft 11a.
A plurality of plugging chucks 12 (eight in the figure) are disposed at equal intervals along the periphery of the turret 11 and revolve together with the turret 11. The bottle 1 is fed onto the turret 11 directly below the capping chuck 12 at the bottle feeding station X, and is fixed by a fixture (not shown). Jump screw cap 3 is at cap feeding station Y
, the capping head 13 of the capping chuck 12
(See Figure 5). The bottle 1 with the cap 3 plugged is delivered from the delivery station Z.

FIG. 5 shows the structure of the capping chuck 12, in which a gripping body 14 made of annular elastic rubber is provided in the lower recess of the capping head 13, and a lower piston is mounted on the upper surface of the gripping body 14. 15 are in contact. When there is no pressure from the lower piston 15,
The inner diameter of the gripper 14 is smaller than the outer diameter of the cap 3 (hereinafter referred to as the open state), but when pressure is applied, the gripper 14 bulges inward in the radial direction (hereinafter referred to as the closed state), thereby holding the cap 3 in place. It is configured to be grippable.
The upper part of the capping head 13 is an air cylinder 16, and the air cylinder 16 is connected to the air cylinder 16 through a conduit 18 passing through the chuck case 17, a spiral pipe 19, and a conduit 21 in the upper piston 20, as shown in FIG. The pressurized air source 22 shown in FIG.
Pressurized air 23 is supplied through the rotary joint 30.

A correspondingly shaped inverted truncated conical surface 25 of the air cylinder 16 is in sliding contact with an inverted truncated conical surface 24 formed at the bottom of the chuck case 17. 26 is an air clutch, and 27 is a piston that presses the clutch 26. 28 is pressurized air that operates the piston 27 and is constantly supplied. The pressure of the pressurized air 28 is determined to be such that the clutch 26 is released when the torque applied to the chuck case 17 exceeds a predetermined value.
The chuck case 17 is constantly rotated in the direction in which the cap 3 is screwed in by a drive mechanism (not shown), and is also configured to move up and down at predetermined timing.

In FIG. 4, 33 is an air cam fixed to a fixed shaft 33a, and 34 is a cam follower. The same number of cam followers 34 as the capping chucks 12 are disposed on the turret 11 in correspondence with each capping chuck 12. The air cam 33 includes a first small-diameter portion 35a ₁ extending downstream from the delivery station Z to the cap feeding station Y, and three large diameter portions provided on the downstream side of the cap feeding station Y to the feeding station Z. Diameter part (convex part)
36a ₁ , 36a ₂ and 36a ₃ , and a second small diameter part (groove) 35a ₂ and a second large diameter part 36a ₂ between the first large diameter part 36a ₁ and the second large diameter part 36a ₂ . Third small diameter part (groove) between third large diameter part _36a3
35a ₃ is formed.

Then, the cam follower 34 is connected to the small diameter portions 35a ₁ , 3
When engaged with 5a ₂ and 35a ₃ , the solenoid valve 29
(Fig. 6) is closed and pressurized air 23 is not supplied to the capping chuck 12, so the gripping body 14 is in an open state, while engaging with the large diameter portions 36a ₁ , 36a ₂ , 36a _{3 .} When the solenoid valve 29 is open and the pressurized air 23 is supplied to the corking chuck 12, the gripper 1 is
4 is configured to be in a closed state.

In the above-described capping device 10, capping is performed as follows.

Bottle 1 sent by a feeder not shown
is fed onto the turret 11 at the bottle feeding station X, placed and fixed directly below the capping chuck 12. In this position, the gripper 14 of the capping head 13 is in an open state. Next, when the bottle 1 and capping chuck 12 reach the cap feeding station Y, the cap 3 fed through the chute 37 is inserted into the gripper 14 by a feeding mechanism (not shown), and the capping chuck 12 is immediately loaded into the capping chuck 12. The cam follower 34 corresponding to the plug chuck and the first large diameter portion _36a1 of the air cam are engaged, and the grip body 14 is in the closed state, and the cap 3 is closed as shown in FIG.
grasp.

The corking chuck 12, in which the chuck case 17 is constantly rotating, is operated while the corking head 13 is rotating.
It immediately starts descending and simultaneously moves in the direction of arrow B together with bottle 1. The position of the upstream end 35a ₂ ' of the second small diameter portion 35a ₂ is determined after the lower end 3a of the cap reaches the upper end 1a ₁ (FIG. 5) of the neck 1a of the bottle 1.
The cam follower 34 is configured to engage with the end portion 35a ₂ '. Therefore, after the cap 3 reaches the state where it covers the mouth and neck part 1a of the bottle 1, the gripper 1
4 is in the open position, the gripping is stopped, i.e. the gripping is released, and the cap 3 is moved to the position where its screw 5 abuts the thread 2a of the bottle 1, e.g. the screw 5 is indicated by 5' in FIG. It falls a small height due to its own weight until it reaches its position. That is, it falls freely by a small height.

Next, the cam follower 34 is moved to the second large diameter portion 3.
When engaged with _6a2 , the gripping body 14 is again brought into a closed state, and the cap 3 gripped by the gripping body 14 is rotated and screwed together. Further, while the cam follower 34 is engaged with the third large diameter portion _36a3 , the screw engagement is performed. For example, the head end 5'a of the screw 5' in FIG.
When reaching the middle of the lower groove part 2b of the horizontal part 2a ₂ of the bottle 1, the upper end 1a ₁ of the bottle 1 and the liner 6 of the cap
is engaged, the screwing is completed, and the air clutch 26 is then engaged.
is released and the rotation of the capping head 13 stops.

Note that the head end 5a of the screw 5 and the tip 2 of the thread 2a
If the threading is carried out smoothly without a ₃ ′ butting, the screw 5 will be inserted into the groove 2b below the horizontal portion 2a ₂ of the thread 2a before the grip 14 is in the first open state. The position of the upstream end 35a _{2 ′ of the small diameter portion 35a 2} may be determined so that the screwing is completed when the small diameter portion 35a ₂ is inserted.

When the capping chuck 12 reaches the delivery station Z, the cam follower 34 engages with the first small diameter portion _35a1 , and the grip body 14 becomes open.
The grip on cap 3 is released and the corking chuck 1 is immediately removed.
2 rises to the original position. Then, the bottle 1 with the cap 3 sealed therein is delivered to the next process by a delivery mechanism (not shown).

When the cap 3 falls, the head end 5a of the screw 5 happens to touch the thread 2, as shown in FIG.
Even if the fall stops in a state where the cam follower 34 collides with the tip 2a ₃ ' of the cam follower 34, the grip body 14 is in the open state while the cam follower 34 is engaged with the third small diameter portion 35a ₃ . Then, the holding of the cap 3 is stopped again and the cap 3 falls until the screw 5 reaches the position indicated by 5'', so that while the cam follower 34 is engaged with the third large diameter portion _36a3, The screws are screwed together smoothly, and the screw 5 is at the 5〓 position.
That is, the screwing is completed when the tip 5a reaches the middle of the groove 2b.

Note that if the dropping based on the first open state is performed too early, the cap 3 will tilt slightly during the dropping, and the cap 3 will be plugged in an inclined state, resulting in incomplete sealing. Therefore, the upstream end 35a 2 of the second small diameter portion 35a ₂ is arranged such that the first drop begins when the head end 5a of the screw 5 reaches a level below the tip _{2a 3} ' of the thread _2a . It is preferable to set the position of '. In this case, even if the screw 5 and the thread 2a collide before falling, the screw 5 will fall until it reaches the 5'' position as described above, so there is no risk of sealing failure.Also, in the unlikely event that the cam follower 34 Even if the drop does not occur while engaged with the second small diameter portion 35a ₂ , it usually occurs while engaged with the third small diameter portion 35a ₃ , so that the bottle may be sealed poorly. There is no risk of this occurring.

Theoretically, the more times the gripper 14 stops gripping the cap, the fewer the number of bottles with poor sealing will decrease.
In reality, even if there is only one cancellation (i.e., the small diameter portion 35a
If only one bottle is provided), there will be almost no bottles with poor sealing, and if there are two discontinuances (i.e. in the case of Fig. 4), the incidence of bottles with poor sealing will be virtually 0%. The test results are clear.

According to the present invention, when a fly screw cap is screwed onto a bottle having a fly screw part and the bottle is capped, a sealing failure may occur due to the head end of the cap screw hitting the tip of the thread part of the bottle. This has the effect of being able to prevent this from occurring.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a front view of an example of a bottle having a fly screw portion to which the present invention is applied, Fig. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view of an example of a fly screw cap to be plugged into the bottle of Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a FIG. 4 is an explanatory plan view of an example of a capping device used in the practice of the present invention, and FIG. Fig. 6 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view taken along the line V-V in Fig. 4, showing the cap shown in Fig. 2 in a state immediately before capping, with the cap shown in Fig. 2 held in the capping head; FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram showing an example of a pressurized air circuit for opening and closing the capping head in the apparatus. 1...bottle, 2...fly screw part, 3...fly screw cap, 13...stopping head.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a method of screwing a fly screw cap onto a bottle having a fly screw portion and capping the bottle, the fly screw cap is gripped by a hanging capping head and the capping head is rotated to approach the bottle. , after the lower end of the cap reaches the upper end of the bottle and until the end of the capping, the grip on the cap is released at least once to allow the cap to freely fall by a small height;
A capping method characterized in that the capper is then gripped again and screwed together.