A method, electromagnetic switch, controller and program product, when energizing an electromagnetic coil to urge a selected shoe into a diverting path downstream of the electromagnetic switch, reverse current flow during at least a portion of the time that the electromagnetic coil is energized to recover energy from the electromagnetic coil.

A sorting system is provided. The sorter system includes a conveyor frame, slats disposed on the conveyor frame and extending substantially perpendicularly to a central axis of the conveyor frame. Shoes are disposed on the slat and are moveable between a central position adjacent to the central axis of the conveyor frame, and a distal position adjacent to one of a first and second side of the conveyor frame.

An apparatus and method for manufacturing glass containers handles the containers individually after a hot forming process and annealing to prevent glass-to-glass contact. By handling the containers individually and preventing glass-to-glass contact damage to the containers in the form of checks and scratches is avoided. To prevent contact of the containers and damage arising from the contact, the equipment including conveyors, pushers, starwheels, shuttles, and transfer heads that move the glass containers through the apparatus maintains the glass containers in uniform spaced relationship at each stage of container processing until the containers are packaged.

System for sorting products comprising a number of combinations of an elongated carrying body and a pusher body, located one after another, which combinations are movable in a direction of movement following a path along which a number of sorting locations are provided, wherein the carrying bodies extend parallel to each other and perpendicular to the direction of movement and wherein the carrying bodies are configured for carrying the products to be sorted, a displacing device for moving the combinations in the direction of movement along the path, wherein each combination is further provided with a further displacing device comprising an electric motor for moving the pusher body in a sorting direction along the carrying body, the sorting direction extending perpendicularly to the direction of movement, for pushing a product carried by the carrying body off of the carrying body with the pusher body, and, amongst other, a plurality of controllers.

An article sorting apparatus includes an article support body, article lateral pushing bodies, a rectilinear-movement guide body, a sliding guide body having a sliding guide surface, and a diverting mechanism. The sliding guide surface is disposed so as to be spaced apart from the diverting mechanism in a main transport direction across a separation region, and the separation region is provided so as to include a contact start region that is a region in the main transport direction where each of the article lateral pushing bodies initially comes into contact with a target article.

An apparatus and method for manufacturing glass containers handles the containers individually after a hot forming process and annealing to prevent glass-to-glass contact. By handling the containers individually and preventing glass-to-glass contact damage to the containers in the form of checks and scratches is avoided. To prevent contact of the containers and damage arising from the contact, the equipment including conveyors, pushers, starwheels, shuttles, and transfer heads that move the glass containers through the apparatus maintains the glass containers in uniform spaced relationship at each stage of container processing until the containers are packaged.

Systems and methods are provided for conveyor operation and maintenance that employ a “smart shoe” technology where one or more conveyor shoes incorporate features, such as an RFID tag, allowing selective wireless tracking and identification capability. A conveyor system comprises a shoe management system allowing interactions directly with a reader where interface between this application and the reader can be implemented via a socket interface. An open platform communications (OPC) wrapper can be created around the interface so that a Human Machine Interface (HMI) could interact directly with shoe management system.

An apparatus and method for manufacturing glass containers handles the containers individually after a hot forming process and annealing to prevent glass-to-glass contact. By handling the containers individually and preventing glass-to-glass contact damage to the containers in the form of checks and scratches is avoided. To prevent contact of the containers and damage arising from the contact, the equipment including conveyors, pushers, starwheels, shuttles, and transfer heads that move the glass containers through the apparatus maintains the glass containers in uniform spaced relationship at each stage of container processing until the containers are packaged.

A sorting system is provided. The sorter system includes a conveyor frame, slats disposed on the conveyor frame and extending substantially perpendicularly to a central axis of the conveyor frame. Shoes are disposed on the slat and are moveable between a central position adjacent to the central axis of the conveyor frame, and a distal position adjacent to one of a first and second side of the conveyor frame.

A method of sorting articles with a sorter apparatus and a sorter apparatus having a conveying surface that is adapted to transport articles in a direction of conveyance and a mechanism adapted to displace articles on the conveying surface, the sorter apparatus having an endless web of bodies travelling in an endless loop defining the conveying surface includes a distributed drive system having at least one drive that is adapted to produce to provide force with at least one of the bodies to propel the endless web. A diagnostic device traveling with the web and positioned at one of the bodies of the endless web. The diagnostic device is adapted to monitor operation of the sorter apparatus and includes at least one sensor that is adapted to detect at least one parameter of a proximate drive that is proximate to the at least one sensor, and a controller adapted to receive the at least one parameter from the at least one sensor. A stationary thermal sensor may also monitor the endless loop via another controller including receiving thermal data from the stationary thermal sensor and the another controller correlates the thermal images with a portion of the endless loop.