An assembly and method for moving bulk items from a first location to a second location is disclosed. The items are moved from the first location to the second location through a pick-up head. Vacuum pressure is supplied to the head to pick-up an item at the first location and carry the item to the second location. A detector is located between the first location and the second location to detect if an item has been picked up by the head. If no item is detected, the head is closed to the vacuum pressure through a control mechanism or closure element.

A packing device of food includes a feeding part configured to supply the food, a gripping part configured to grip a plurality of foods at both sides of a plurality of foods in a direction in which the plurality of foods are placed in order by the feeding part, and a conveying part configured to convey onto a tray the plurality of foods gripped by the gripping part.

A unit for grouping together and aligning capsules for extraction or infusion products including a first rotary unit equipped with first seats for receiving capsules designed to receive respective capsules from a transport element of a machine for forming capsules; a second rotary unit operating in conjunction with the first rotary unit to receive from the latter, in a predetermined transfer region, capsules and equipped with a first rotary element equipped with respective second seats receiving capsules and a second rotary element equipped with respective third seats for receiving capsules, with the first and second rotary elements which can be rotated independently in the same direction of rotation for picking up, alternately and in succession, capsules from the first rotary unit.

Articles are transferred from an article supply conveyor to an article receiving conveyor while the transferring articles are selectively reoriented. When the conveyors are in parallel, a travelling article reorienting turret seeks articles following an article absence or hole on the supply conveyor and transfers the following article to a next-in-line position on the receiving conveyor to cure or avoid holes of articles on the receiving conveyor.

A converting apparatus operates to control and transfer a folded absorbent article from a first carrier apparatus to a second carrier apparatus. The converting apparatus includes a transfer apparatus and a fluid supply member located adjacent to the transfer apparatus. The transfer apparatus includes a frame that is rotatable about a first axis of rotation and a transfer member that is rotatable about a second axis of rotation. The transfer member defines a receiving surface. The receiving surface includes a plurality of apertures that may operate in cooperation with the fluid supply member to remove any waist region folds in the absorbent article such that a substantially flat absorbent article may be transferred from the transfer apparatus to the second carrier apparatus.

A molded product conveying device configures to suck a molded product to a rotator rotating about a predetermined rotary axis and to convey the molded product along a rotation orbit. The conveying device includes a pocket disposed along an outer circumference of the rotator, recessed inward and opened outward radially and perpendicularly to the rotary axis, and fed therein with negative pressure to suck the molded product, and a suction bore positioned to confront the pocket at a first end or a second end along the rotary axis of the rotator, opened toward the pocket to be at least partially overlapped with the pocket when viewed along the rotary axis, and fed therein with a negative pressure to suck the molded product.

An apparatus for manufacturing of multi-element rods of the tobacco industry comprising a feeding apparatus, a transferring apparatus, and a forming apparatus, comprising a first rotational element provided with lugs immobile relative to the first rotational element, a second rotational element provided with lugs immobile relative to the second rotational element, a third rotational element provided with lugs immobile relative to the third rotational element, used to convey rod-like elements. The rotational elements having notches between the lugs adapted to receive and convey the rod-like elements, whereas the rotational elements are arranged and adapted to guide the rod-like elements successively through the rotational elements. The apparatus comprises the forming apparatus designed to form a continuous multi-element rod, and a cutting apparatus. The apparatus according to the invention is characterised in that the third lugs have a thickness smaller than the thickness of the first lugs.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for transferring objects comprising: an object take-off roller (10) comprising, on the periphery thereof, members (11) for individually gripping said objects, a device for rotating said object take-off roller (10)said individual gripping members being arranged in at least one ring, said apparatus comprising, for each ring, a linear actuator (13), placed in the interior volume defined by said roller, for moving an individual gripping member (11) appearing opposite this linear actuator (13) between a rest position and a gripping position in which this individual gripping member (11) extends radially, projecting from this take-off roller (10) to grip an object, the gripping position being obtained by one free mobile end of said linear actuator (13) bearing against said individual gripping member (11), said take-off roller (10) being configured to move an individual gripping member (11) in its rest position one by one in front of each linear actuator (13) as it rotates. According to the inventionthe free end of said linear actuator (13) being mobile between a folded position and a deployed position in which this free end is in contact with an individual gripping member (11), this linear actuator (13) is rotationally mobile between at least an engaged position and a disengaged position such that, with the free end of said linear actuator (13) being in its deployed position or in an intermediate position between its deployed position and its folded position, said linear actuator (13) is freely moved from its engaged position to its disengaged position when it comes into contact with another individual gripping member (11), in its rest position, carried by said rotating take-off roller (10), said disengaged position corresponding to a position in which said actuator is spaced apart from said individual gripping members, said assembly comprising a return member (15) to return said actuator from its disengaged position to its engaged position when the free end of said actuator is in its folded position or in an intermediate position not able to interact with an individual gripping member (11) in its rest position.

A system includes a hollow shaft, a drum, an absolute encoder, a driving mechanism, a conveyor belt, a photoelectric sensor, and a controller. A structural optimization design method of the drum is provided on the basis of theoretical calculation of a seeding track of the drum-type seed-metering device, a theoretical model of a conveying position of a tray and a seed-metering angle is built with the aim of continuously sowing grains to the center of each hole, the conveying position of the tray and a rotating position of suction holes on the drum are monitored in real time on a seedling raising line, and a difference value between the actual position of the suction holes and the theoretical seed-metering angle and a change rate of the difference value are calculated and serve as input parameters to design a fuzzy controller of the rotation speed of the drum.

Methods and apparatuses for moving and/or transferring discrete articles are described. In particular, the methods and apparatuses relate to flexible arrangements to move and/or transfer discrete articles that vary in size and/or shape with minimal to no change in equipment.