Universal winding machine for a multitude of tray designs

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11278275-B2
Application number	US-201916564000-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 9, 2019
Priority date	Sep 10, 2018
Publication date	Mar 22, 2022
Grant date	Mar 22, 2022

Abstract

A machine for winding sutures into a suture tray package comprises a base platform, a plurality of package nests, a first workstation for placing an empty tray onto one of the package nests, a further workstation for feeding a needle with an attached suture in the tray and parking said needle in the tray, a winding station for winding the suture into a winding channel of the tray, a lid placement station for placing a lid onto one of the package nests, a lid attachment station for attaching the lid to the tray, and an offloading station for removing said trays from the package nests. The further workstation comprises two tweezer grippers, at least one of said tweezer grippers having a V- or U-shaped notch, said V- or U-shaped notch being located at the inside of the notched tweezer gripper facing the second tweezer gripper.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A machine for winding sutures into a suture tray package, comprising:
a base platform;
a plurality of package nests;
a first workstation for placing an empty tray onto one of the package nests;
a further workstation for feeding a needle with an attached suture in the tray and parking said needle in the tray, the further workstation comprising at least two infeed lines for receiving infeed slides with needles and attached sutures;
a winding station for winding the suture into a winding channel of the tray;
a lid placement station for placing a lid onto one of the package nests;
a lid attachment station for attaching the lid to the tray; and
an offloading station for removing said trays from the package nests.

2. The winding machine according to claim 1 ,
wherein the at least two infeed lines are exactly two infeed lines positioned at a 90 degree angle to each other.

3. The winding machine according to claim 1 ,
wherein said at least two infeed lines end at the same position.

4. The winding machine according to claim 1 ,
wherein one of said at least two infeed lines comes from an automated crimping unit.

5. The winding machine according to claim 1 ,
wherein one of said at least two infeed lines comes from a manual loading station.

6. The winding machine according to claim 1 ,
wherein the further workstation for feeding a needle in the tray and parking said needle in the tray comprises two tweezer grippers, and
wherein at least one of said tweezer grippers has a V- or U-shaped notch, said V- or U-shaped notch being located at an inside of the notched tweezer gripper facing the second tweezer gripper.

7. The winding machine according to claim 6 ,
wherein said V- or U-shaped notch is located at such a height of the notched tweezer gripper that the needle gripped with the tweezer grippers is held with a defined distance to the base of the tray.

8. The winding machine according to claim 6 ,
wherein said tweezer grippers rotate the gripped needle into the side of a foam park, said foam park being located at the base of the tray.

9. The winding machine according to claim 6 ,
wherein said tweezer grippers are gripping the needle from an infeed clamp, said infeed clamp being located on each infeed slide of the infeed slides.

10. The winding machine according to claim 9 ,
wherein there is a recessed area in the infeed slide, said recessed area being located in front of the infeed clamp in order to allow the tweezer grippers to dip into this recessed area when gripping the needle from the infeed clamp.

11. The winding machine according to claim 10 ,
wherein the recessed area of the infeed slide is designed as a cavity in the infeed slide.

Assignees

• Hoefliger Harro Verpackung
• Harra Hoefliger Verpackungsmaschinen Gmbh

Inventors

• Dey Clifford
• Neff Ingmar
• Brecht Sven
• Renz Marcel
• Gattnar Jürgen

Classifications

• A61B2017/06147

  Foam blocks, e.g. slitted · CPC title

• A61B2017/00526

  Methods of manufacturing · CPC title

• A61B17/06114 Primary

  Packages or dispensers for needles or sutures (packages for sharps A61B50/3001; for dental floss A61C15/043; packages for needles in general B65D85/24) · CPC title

• B65B35/10

  Feeding, e.g. conveying, single articles · CPC title

• A61B17/06133

  of parallelepipedal shape, e.g. made of rectangular or slightly oval panels · CPC title