Fabric roll sorting method

Abstract

Method to sort rolls of fabric which have an insert located in one end of the fabric roll with at least two different types of indicia printed thereon to (1) indicate that the insert is in a position to be read and (2) indicate the desired disposition of the roll of fabric in which the insert is located.

Description

In a textile plant, it is frequently necessary to sort rolls of fabric by separation by grade, dye lot, etc. To make the separation mechanically, it is necessary to code or identify the object so that it is readable at each sorting station.

Simple devices are available that read the position of retro-reflective or colored tapes on cartons. These do not work well on rolls because of lack of orientation. Fabrics are colorful and display patterns which would interfere with standard reading devices. To over-come these objections a novel arrangement of reading devices and identification method is provided which includes a conical tube or sleeve inserted in the end of the fabric roll permanently identified to indicate a single sorting location. To avoid stray signals, a retro-reflective tape wrapped around the insert activates the code reader to read the signal at the moment when the code is in the proper location.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a novel method of automatically sorting a directing rolls of a fabric to a desired location.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become readily apparent as the specification proceeds to describe the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a top schematic view of a plurality of rolls of fabric on a conveyor system;

FIG. 2 is a simplified circuit diagram of the system shown in FIG. 1;

FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate one basic form of reflective tape and bar code for the fabric insert; and

FIGS. 5 and 6 are a modified version of the form of the invention shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.

Looking now to the drawings and especially to FIG. 1, a plurality of rolls of fabric 10 are being conveyed on conveyor 12 in the direction of the arrow to a location, not shown, where the fabric may be stored, consumed, loaded on a truck, etc. Located in the end of each fabric roll 10 is a round or oval conical insert 14 with at least two types of code information 16 and 18 thereon. In the preferred form of the invention, this code information consists of a retro-reflective tape 20 and a series of dark bars 22, both of which are wrapped completely around the insert 14 so that they can be read regardless of the position of the fabric roll 10 on the conveyor 12.

Located downstream of the loading point of the fabric rolls 10 is a scanner 24 and a code reader 26 to detect the code information on the insert 14. Looking at FIG. 1 in conjunction with the circuit diagram of FIG. 2, the scanner 24 will pick-up a signal reflected from the retro-reflective tape 20 to close the relay 28 to allow the code reader 26 to energize the solenoid 30 when the desired arrangement of dark bars is read by the coder reader 26. When the solenoid 30 is energized the switch 32 will move to the dotted line position to actuate the actuator 34 to route the scanner roll of fabric 10 in a pre-determined manner. Otherwise, the switch 30 will stay in the solid line position and the roll of fabric will be handled as dictated by the pre-set actuator 36.

The scanner 24 basically ensures that the dark bars 22 of the code information strips 16 are in proper location so that the reader 26 will correctly read same in order to properly dispose of the coded fabric roll 10. As pointed out, the information on the insert 14 is wrapped completely therearound so that regardless of the position of the roll on the conveyor 12, the roll of fabric 10 can be properly handled by the selected actuator 34 and 36. In the preferred form of the invention, we show only two actuators 34 and 36 but obviously any number of desired operations can be performed depending on the code information on the insert 14 and the number of actuators controlled thereby.

In the preferred form of the invention, the information strips can be in the form of a separate retro-reflective strip 20 followed by the dark bars 22 or the dark bars can be located on the retro-reflective strip as shown in FIG. 4.

If the article to be handled is such that it can be placed on a predetermined position and will remain in such position, the position of the insert to be read by the code reader 26 can be of the bulls-eye type as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6. As in FIG. 4 above, the bulls-eye 38 can be placed on the retro-reflective strip 20 as shown in FIG. 6.

The herein disclosed system can be used for sorting, counting, dumping, directing, aligning, etc. of the roll of fabric being handled. This work, of course, is handled by the actuation of the actuators 34 or 36 to perform the desired function. The number of functions that can be handled is almost infinite depending on the code information placed on the insert. The number of variations can be multiplied by the use of color coding of the bars 22 but this is well within the skill of one versed in the art.

Although the preferred embodiments of the invention have been described, it is contemplated that many changes may be made and it is desired that the invention be limited only by the scope of the claims.

Claims

That which is claimed is:

1. A method to sort rolls of material having an insert in one end with at least two sets of indicia on the insert: conveying a plurality of rolls of material past a detection station, scanning the insert to detect one set of indicia to allow a code reader to energize an actuator upon the detection of certain pre-determined information in the other set of indicia and reading the other set of indicia and energizing an actuator upon the reading of certain information of the other set of indicia.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the sets of indicia are wrapped around the insert in the roll of material prior to the scanning and reading of same.