Novel closures for bottles comprising a bottle closure having a socket shaped and sized to receive the drive head of a convention winch handle and a closure means for securing the closure to the neck of the bottle to seal the bottle. Two such closures are described, one of for use with beer style bottle and another for rum or whiskey style bottles. The closures are particularly useful for bottled beverages brought aboard sailboats that use manual winches. The closures can be removed from the bottles using winch handles that are already aboard the sailboat, allowing the beverages to be consumed.

A chuck for a capping machine includes a plurality of chuck members, a biasing member configured to bias the plurality of chuck members radially inward, an abutting portion configured to abut against a top face of a cap, and a plurality of chuck jaws provided on an inner surface of each of the plurality of chuck members to engage knurls of the cap. Each of the plurality of chuck jaws includes a leading flank and a trailing flank. An angle of the trailing flank with respect to an outer circumference of the cap is less than an angle of the leading flank with respect to the outer circumference of the cap.

A capping and de-capping apparatus (100) for capping and de-capping tubes (112) disposed in a tube holding rack (111) having a two-dimensional array of apertures (114) for holding the tubes (112). The apparatus (100) comprises a rack support (110) for supporting the tube holding rack (111), a head unit (120) adapted for carrying a cartridge (152) comprising at least one capping and de-capping gripper (122), a drive system (130) for moving the rack support (110) and the head unit (120) relatively towards and away from one another, in order to cause engagement or disengagement of the capping and de-capping gripper (122) with or from a cap (113) of at least one tube (112), and a drive system (140) for rotating the capping and de-capping gripper (122), wherein rotation in one direction causes attachment of the cap (113) to the tube (112) and rotation in the opposite direction causes detachment of the cap (113) from said tube (112).

The invention relate generally to a tightening mechanism for a bottle filling and capping system, and a bottle neck configuration. More specifically, the invention includes a machine for tightening plastic caps onto the threaded necks of plastic bottles, and bottle neck configuration that facilitates the capping process, both of which result in a simple and effective capping operation. A conveying assembly moves the bottle in a circular path where the neck of the bottle and the cap are brought together by moving the bottle under a cap that is loosely held at a particular elevation and angle by a feeder mechanism. The conveying system constricts the rotational movement of the bottle, and a neck support stabilizes the neck of the bottle vertically, as the cap is pressed onto the neck initially by a roller. A capping station in a bottle filling line is comprised of a spring biased toothed finger that engage the peripheral edge of the caps as the bottles are conveyed through the machine. Depending on various factors such as the number and circumferential length of the threads on the cap and bottle a second roller and second toothed finger will be used to complete the tightening process. When a capped bottle exits the capping station, the cap is fully engaged with the bottle in that it is tightened and in its final position relative to the bottle.

A self-adjusting capping chuck includes a support having a longitudinal axis, a guide element fixed with respect to the support and having guides, jaws which engage respective guides and are movable with respect to the support between release and gripping positions, the jaws have respective gripping surfaces and first cam surfaces, and a control ring movable relative to the support along the longitudinal axis between lowered and raised positions and having second cam surfaces cooperating with first cam surfaces of the jaws, so that the movement of the control ring from the lowered to the raised position moves the jaws from the release to the gripping position. The control ring has an abutment wall arranged to abut on a head surface of a closure element so that, during movement of the chuck along the longitudinal axis, the closing element moves the control ring from the lowered to the raised position.

A bottle capping chuck that uses serrated segments with a cap torque ramp angle to grip and torque a bottle cap combined with other segments that utilize holding segments both combining to eliminate slippage and stripping and holding of bottle caps during a bottle capping process.

The present invention relates to a capping machine equipped with a plurality of capping heads with roto-translation movement.

In particular, the present invention relates to a capping head (1) comprising a supporting structure (2) on which a roto-translation system (3) is mounted, operatively connected to a capping device (4), characterized in that the roto-translation system (3) comprises a linear motor (3a) and a rotary motor (3b) operatively coupled so as to impart a roto-translation motion to the capping device (4) and in that the capping head (1, 201) comprises a suspension system adapted to keep the rotary motor (3b) in a raised position even when the linear motor (3a) is disconnected or electromagnetically decoupled.

The present invention relates to a filler machine and method. The filler machine and method allow efficient and/or accurate filling of containers such as bottles, and have particular application to filling bottles or similar containers with carbonated beverages.

The method relates to a method for filling a container (13, 32) with carbonized liquid filling material and for closing the filled container, in which the filling material is introduced in a filling station (10, 30) by a filling head (11, 33) at defined filling pressure into the container (13, 32), wherein the filling head (11, 33) is firstly moved from an idle position, which permits supplying and inserting a container (13, 32) into the filling station (10, 30), into a working position toward the inserted container, in which an end region (16) of the filling head seals off the opening (14) of the container, the container (13, 32) is then filled, the filling head (11, 33) is moved after completion of the filling phase back out of the working position into an idle position spaced apart from the container (13, 32) and the container (13, 32) is then closed in the filling station (10, 30) using a cap (20) at least enough that filling material can no longer escape, and the container (13, 32) is then removed from the filling station (11, 33), characterized in that before the movement of the filling head (11, 33) from the working position into the idle position spaced apart from the container (13), an overpressure lying between the ambient pressure and the filling pressure is set in a pressure chamber (15) of the filling station (10, 30) surrounding the opening (14) of the inserted container (13, 32), which overpressure is selected in such a way that possible foaming up of the filling material located in the container (13, 32) is minimized enough that filling material does not escape from the container (13, 32) when the filling head (11, 33) is raised out of the working position after the filling procedure.

A device for placing threaded lids on containers includes a holder for lids to be placed and a mechanism for retaining the lids stored in the holder. The retaining mechanism has a predetermined retaining position in which the lids stored in the holder are retained and a release position in which one of the lids stored in the holder is dispensed. The device also includes a lid positioner, which places a threaded lid on a container through a first rotation about a first axis when the positioner is in the placing position. When the position is in the receiving position, the positioner causes the retaining mechanism to change from the predetermined retaining position to the release position through rotation about the first axis.