The present invention relates to a method and a device for taking and transferring compact discs and similar articles to a packaging line in a compact discs packaging machine.
Compact discs and other similar articles, commonly used nowadays, are often packaged not only in rigid plastic containers, but also in envelopes made of plastic or other suitable material, e.g. card.
The envelopes are usually square, and have sides slightly bigger than the sides of the compact disc. One side of the envelope is usually open for introducing and extracting the compact disc.
The compact discs are packaged into the above envelopes by automatic machines working in stepwise fashion.
The operation speed of the packaging machines is usually limited and consequently, the productivity is not very high.
These limitations are caused by the necessity of avoiding damages to compact discs, e.g. due to rubbing and the like.
Actually, the compact discs are manipulated during different working steps of the packaging machines, both when the are taken from a magazine and when they are introduced into the envelopes.
During these manipulations, the active surface of the compact disc can be rubbed.
The object of the present invention is to resolve the above problem by proposing a method which allows to automatically take and transfer compact discs and other similar articles to a packaging line, assuring high operation speed and avoiding damages to the compact discs, so as to allow continuous operation of the compact discs packaging machine.
Another object of the present invention is to propose a machine, carrying out the above method, whose structure is simple and which is reliable and versatile.
The above objects are obtained according to the invention, by the proposed method for taking and transferring compact discs and other similar articles to a packaging line in a compact discs packaging machine, which is characterized in that it includes:
removing single compact discs from a magazine, where said compact discs are piled up, by means of a pick up group which is carried by a drum of a placing device, rotating continuously on its axis, with said pick up group being operated so as to perform a combined translation motions away from and towards said pile of compact discs and along a circumference around said drum, so as to move in a direction opposite to the movement direction imposed by said drum, from a first remote position, which is situated forward with respect to a median plane, to a close taking position, close to a compact disc to be removed from said magazine;
continuing said combined translation movement of said pick up group with respect to the movement direction imposed by said drum, so as to bring the removed compact disc to a second remote position, situated rearward with respect to said median plane;
transferring said removed compact disc to a packaging line by means of a combined translating movement of said pick up group with respect to the movement direction imposed by said drum, from a remote position situated forward to a close position, in which said compact disc is released.