Importance

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Abstract

A conveyor for moving uniformly spaced-apart cylindrical articles transversely of their polar axes comprises a pair of parallel sawtooth rails, paired lifting and lowering levers on common pivots disposed along the rails in correspondence with each toothed portion of a rail, and cams for sequentially pivoting the lifting levers. The paired sawtooth elements include a stop surface and an inclined surface extending downwardly therefrom in the direction of article movement. The lowering lever is resiliently pivoted to an upper position independently of the lifting lever, and is downwardly pivotable by an article as it rolls down an inclined surface. Pivotation of the lowering lever to upper position permits the lifting lever gravitationally to pivot below an inclined surface. Pivotation of the lowering lever downwardly causes it to engage the lifting lever and maintain an article stop surface thereof above the inclined surface in a position upstream of the preceding sawtooth stop surface, and to which position the lifting lever also is pivotable from its lower position by a cam to lift an article over a corresponding sawtooth stop surface to cause it to roll down the succeeding inclined surface. The paired lifting and lowering levers and the corresponding sawtooth elements are so cooperatively disposed as to define a series of article receiving stations accommodating, upon removal of an article, controlled, sequential movements of preceding ones of the articles along the rails, as the lifting levers and the lowering levers are sequentially pivoted.

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First Claim