METHOD FOR REGULATING A CONVEYING STREAM COMPOSED OF ARTICLES OF THE TOBACCO-PROCESSING INDUSTRY BETWEEN A TRAY DISCHARGER AND A FEED DEVICE WITH MULTIPLE FEED UNITS

摘要

A method is provided to regulate a conveying stream composed of articles of the tobacco-processing industry between at least one tray discharger and connected to at least one feed device by a conveying element that conveys a mass flow of the articles. The feed device has at least one chamber designed to receive the articles, and each chamber has at least two feed units running independently of each other to feed the articles to subsequent apparatuses. Each feed unit has an individual feed rate (P₁, P₂, . . . P_n). The method includes monitoring a level within the feed device using monitoring elements; sending a signal to each of the at least one tray dischargers for regulating the speed of transport of the conveying element and the feed rate (in articles/min) as a function of a current level within the feed device, and adapting the speed of transport to a desired level. The speed of transport of each conveying element is additionally regulated as a function of the feed rate (P_total) formed from the sum of the individual feed rates (P₁, P₂, . . . P_n) of all feed units assigned to a respective chamber.