INSPECTION AND SORTING APPARATUS

Abstract

An inspection and sorting apparatus includes a support frame supporting a transport mechanism with an endless transport belt extending along an inspection zone with an inspection mechanism for transported items and a sorting zone with a sorting mechanism for moving rejected items transverse to a transport path to a sorting side. When in an operation state, a space lateral to and alongside the sorting zone is covered by a housing cover but is open to the sorting zone and to a downside to allow rejected items to further fall or slide down by gravity. Alternatively, or additionally, the apparatus includes a side cover covering a region below the sorting zone laterally from the sorting side. The housing cover and/or the side cover is movable between a covering position in the operation state of the apparatus and a release position granting lateral access to the sorting zone and/or to said region from the sorting side.

Claims

1. An inspection and sorting apparatus, comprising: a support frame supporting a transport mechanism with an endless transport belt extending along an inspection zone in which items transported on the transport belt along a transport path are inspected by an inspection mechanism and along a sorting zone in which items to be rejected are sorted out by being moved, by a sorting mechanism, out of the transport path in a direction transverse to the transport path to a sorting side; wherein, in an operation state of the apparatus: a space lateral to and alongside the sorting zone, into which the rejected items are moved, is covered by a housing cover but is open to the sorting zone and to a downside to allow the rejected items to further fall or slide down by gravity; and/or the apparatus is provided with a side cover covering a region below the sorting zone laterally from the sorting side; wherein the housing cover and/or the side cover is movable between a covering position in the operation state of the apparatus and a release position granting lateral access to the sorting zone and/or to said region from the sorting side.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the housing cover and the side cover are connected and their motion between covering and release position is linked.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the motion between the covering position and the release position is uniform along the direction of the transport path.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the motion between covering and release position is a pivot motion.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the pivot axis of the pivot motion has a predominant component of direction along the transport path.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein, in the release position of the side cover, a strap formed by the transport path of and return path below the sorting zone is accessible.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the inspection zone, a further region below the inspection zone, an inlet zone along which the transport belt is extended upstream of the transport path of the inspection zone and/or a yet further region below the inlet zone is laterally covered by a further side cover arrangement in the covering position in the operation state, and is movable, in particular pivotable, in particular about a pivot axis parallel to or colinear with the pivot axis of the housing cover and/or the side cover, as a whole or in two or more pieces.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising a bin positionable below said space in working position, for accommodating rejected items falling down/through said space.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the bin is releasably mounted to the side cover and/or housing cover and the motion of the housing is effectable in the mounting position of the bin.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an inner cover laterally covering a space between transport path side and return path side of the transport belt and dimensioned to pass through the interior of the endless belt when the endless belt is relatively moved with respect to the inner cover transverse to the transport direction.

11. The apparatus of claim 4, further comprising a carrier beam, extending in particular in transport path direction, to which a hinge mechanism for the pivot motion of the housing cover, the side cover, and/or the further cover are mounted, wherein said carrier beam is arranged on a height level below the inner cover and below the return path of the transport belt.

12. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein a hinge mechanism position for said pivot motion of the housing cover, the side cover, and/or a further side cover is a vertical distance from the height level of the return path of the transport belt of more than 1 cm and/or less than 16 cm.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the vertical distance is more than 3 cm and less than 8 cm.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a holding mechanism holding a roller at the beginning and/or a roller at the end of the transport path of the transport belt is switchable from a holding position for the operation state of the apparatus and a release position allowing the belt to be stripped off for lateral removal.

15. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising an operating panel.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said operating panel is located at the sorting side.

17. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the inspection mechanism consists of or comprises X-ray inspection of the items processed by the apparatus.

18. An inspection and sorting apparatus, said apparatus comprising: a support frame supporting a transport mechanism comprising an endless transport belt extending along a transport path comprising an inspection zone and a sorting zone; an inspection mechanism located at the inspection zone for inspecting items transported on the transport belt along the transport path; a sorting mechanism located at the sorting zone for selectively moving items out of the transport path in a direction transverse to the transport path to a sorting side; wherein, in an operation state of the apparatus: a space lateral to and alongside the sorting zone is covered by a housing cover and open to the sorting zone and to a downside for allowing the rejected items to further fall or slide down by gravity; and/or a side cover is provided which covers a region below the sorting zone laterally from the sorting side; wherein the housing cover and/or the side cover is movable between a covering position in the operation state of the apparatus and a release position granting lateral access to the sorting zone and/or to said region from the sorting side.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0033] Further features, details and advantages of the invention are described in the subsequent specification with reference to the accompanying figures, wherein:

[0034] FIG. 1 shows an inspection and sorting apparatus in a perspective view from the front side in a working state;

[0035] FIG. 2 shows the apparatus of FIG. 1 in a non-working state;

[0036] FIG. 3 is an oblique perspective view illustrating transport belt removal;

[0037] FIG. 4 illustrates the transport belt removal in a direction of view against a transport direction of the transport belt; and

[0038] FIGS. 5A and 5B show two roller positions for belt tension relief.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENT(S)

[0039] An inspection and sorting apparatus 100 as shown in FIG. 1 comprises a support frame 10 standing on height-adjustable feet 12. Supported by support frame 10 is a transport mechanism comprising an endless conveyor belt 20. The upper side of conveyor belt 20 defines a transport plane and a transport path, along which items to be inspected and sorted (not shown) are transported, in FIG. 1 from the left to the right. Roughly centered with reference to the extension of the transport belt 20 is an inspection unit 15. In this embodiment, inspection unit 15 is an X-ray inspection unit, as such known to the person skilled in the art and, therefore, not further described here regarding inspection aspects.

[0040] Items to be inspected and sorted enter the apparatus 100 by passing a first (shielding) curtain 31 (FIG. 2) to enter an inlet zone 30 as starting section of the transport path, covered to the front side by a first cover panel 83. Further downstream in transport direction the items pass a second curtain 34 to enter an inspection zone 40 (FIG. 2) which is covered by second cover panel 84, where the items are X-ray inspected by inspection unit 15. After inspection, the items pass a third curtain 45 to reach a sorting zone 50 (FIG. 2). Those items successfully passing the X-ray inspection are then leaving the apparatus 100 by passing a fourth curtain 51, to be then handed over to subsequent processing, e.g., to another transport belt.

[0041] Those items not successfully passing the X-ray inspection (in the following: rejected items) are sorted out by a not-shown sorting mechanism, which in the shown embodiment is implemented by air-blasting. As generally known in the art, the function of the sorting mechanism is to deflect the rejected items out of the transport path, such that they do not leave the sorting zone 50 in transport direction, but are deflected to a sorting side, in FIG. 1, 2 to the front side (respectively right side when viewed in transport direction). The rejected items are thus moved through an opening 65 in a third panel 60 laterally covering (with exception of opening 65) the sorting zone 50. Thereby, the rejected items enter the space beside the sorting zone 50, which is covered by housing cover 70. As can be seen by FIG. 1, housing cover 70 has a top cover 75, lateral covers 72 and 73, and towards the sorting side a front cover with a first upper portion 74 and a lower second portion 71, which is hinged to be pivotable such that a bin 76, which in this embodiment is configured as hanging in housing cover 70, can be removed to be emptied and re-inserted.

[0042] As one can see from FIG. 1, an operation panel 18 of inspection unit 15 is facing also to the sorting side, that is the apparatus 100 has a front side being the operating side and the sorting of rejected items being also versus the operating side (which is the sorting side).

[0043] Further, as one can see from FIG. 1, in the working state/configuration, the apparatus is nearly fully covered to avoid stray X-rays coming out of the apparatus, in a way as the person skilled in the art is used to. To the front, said coverage is achieved by first cover panel 83, second cover panel 84, and third cover panel 60 to which housing cover 70 is fixedly attached.

[0044] Notwithstanding the housing cover 70 housing its interior (which is the space into which the rejected items are moved to then fall down by gravity into bin 76) is mounted to the apparatus 100 laterally covering the sorting zone 50, access to sorting zone 50 can be obtained without dismounting the housing cover 70. This is because housing cover 70 can be pivoted from its working position in the working state shown in FIG. 1 to a pivoted release position shown in FIG. 2, giving said lateral access.

[0045] To this end, support frame 10 supports a longitudinal carrier beam 80 which extends in transport direction, in this embodiment along insert zone 30, inspection zone 40 and sorting zone 50. At level of the sorting zone 50, a hinge mechanism 67a is provided, hingedly linking the carrier beam 80 to a lower portion 67 of the third cover panel 60. Since the carrier beam 80 is in a height direction, arranged below the level of the lower side of the transport belt 20 (defining the return path thereof), said lower portion 67a extending to about the transport plane is a side cover covering a region below the sorting zone laterally from the sorting side.

[0046] On said longitudinal carrier beam 80, further a hinge arrangement 84a is provided at level (in transport direction) of the inspection zone 40, hingedly linking the second cover panel 84, and further, at level of the inlet zone 30, a hinge mechanism 83a hingedly linking first cover panel 83. As one can see from FIG. 2, there is entire lateral access of inlet zone 30, inspection zone 40 and sorting zone 50, when cover panels 83 and 84 are opened and also the whole housing cover 70 is opened by pivoting about pivot axis X defined by hinge arrangement 67a. Moreover, due to the above described arrangement of hinge mechanism 67a with reference to the height level of the transport belt 20, there is sufficient access to strip the transport belt 20 off from its holding rollers (upper holding roller 21 at insert of transport path, upper holding roller 22 at the end of the transport path). That is, the cover housing 70 for coupling the reject bin 76 to the apparatus 100 in a covered manner is not even to be dismounted for belt removal/replacement. This is best to be seen from FIG. 3 and FIG. 4. The belt 20 can be taken off uniformly with essentially unchanged area of the interior of the endless belt 20 orthogonal to a width direction (which width direction being orthogonal to both transport direction and height direction).

[0047] In order to take off the belt 20 with lower tension than in the working state, roller 21 is pivotable via pivotable holding arms 24 in, with reference to FIG. 2, counter clockwise direction. To this end, a release lever 26 is activated to allow motion from the working position of arms 24 shown in FIG. 5A to be rotated in the position shown in FIG. 5B to reduce the tension of the belt 20. Said lever 26 can be activated tool-free just by hand.

[0048] As one can see from the embodiment of FIGS. 1 and 2, the pivot motion to bring the housing cover 70 from its working state to a release state can be executed even without removing bin 76 from the housing cover 70. Then (FIG. 2), the release position of the housing cover 70 is roughly such that the plane of third cover panel 60 is essentially horizontal. In case that bin 76 is removed before pivoting housing cover 70, the pivot motion can continue significantly beyond 90?, such as to provide for more lateral space at the level of the sorting zone 50, if desired. As can be further seen in FIG. 3, coupling of the bin 76 for hanging arrangement can also be modified for a bin standing on the floor, as bin 78 shown in FIG. 3, having roller feet 78a. Bin 78 can be emptied, e.g., by opening its front door, and has a first portion being in its working position underneath the housing cover 70. Bin 78 further has a second portion 78b which, seen in direction of gravity, is arranged below the sorting zone 50 or a part thereof.

[0049] As one can further see, best in FIG. 2, the first cover panel 83 and the support frame 10 do not overlap in transport direction. Also there is no overlap between the support frame 10 and the housing cover 70 in transport direction, while the support frame laterally extends in width direction beyond the inspection zone 40.

[0050] The space between upper side (transport) and lower side (return path) of the transport belt 20 is protected by protection panel 90 even in the release position of cover panels 83, 84 and of housing cover 70. Respective sections 93, 94 and 95 of protection panel 90 corresponding to the zones 30, 40, 50 are continuous in this embodiment, but could be in form of several independent pieces.

REFERENCE NUMBER LIST

[0051] 10 support frame [0052] 12 feet [0053] 15 inspection unit [0054] 18 operation panel [0055] 20 transport belt [0056] 21, 22 roller [0057] 24 arm [0058] 26 lever [0059] 30 inlet zone [0060] 31, 34, 45, 51 curtain [0061] 40 inspection zone [0062] 50 sorting zone [0063] 60, 63, 84 panel [0064] 67 side cover [0065] 67a, 83a, 84a hinge mechanism [0066] 70 housing cover [0067] 71 lower top side cover [0068] 72, 73 side cover [0069] 74 upper side cover [0070] 75 top side cover [0071] 76, 78 bin [0072] 78a roller [0073] 78b bin portion [0074] 80 carrier beam [0075] 90 inner cover [0076] 93, 94, 95 inner cover portions [0077] 100 inspection and sorting apparatus