A carton erector apparatus for setting up foldable carton blanks. The apparatus includes a carton blank storage section, a carton blank setup section and a bottom flap folding section. A carriage assembly delivers a setup carton from the setup section into the bottom flap folding section. Means is provided to selectively control the distance that the carriage assembly travels into the bottom flap folding section during each cycle.

A machine is provided for spreading out cardboard boxes automatically, which is structured such that cardboards can be held in a holding mechanism upright and closely side by side, and fed to a main body one after another, and which have sucking disks for drawing the cardboards to spread out the same; the sucking disks can be adjusted in position as well as length of space between them; the machine further has a bending mechanism for bending bottom shutter portions of the cardboard boxes after the cardboard boxes are spread out; adhesive tapes are automatically applied onto the bottom of the boxes to seal the boxes after the bottom shutter portions of the boxes are bent.

A case opening apparatus that is part of a larger case loading and sealing machine which includes a loading bay for holding container blanks in vertical stacks, a means for removing the uppermost container blank from said stack and transferring it into an overhead rail system, and a case opening apparatus utilizing suction above and below the container blank The case opening apparatus includes an arm that has dual pivots so that by two separate motions it opens and thereafter erects a container blank for subsequent loading and sealing in preparation for shipment.

An apparatus for infolding and sealing the side and end bottom flaps of a carton includes a unique bottom side flap infolding system comprising flap infolding arms mounted to rotary cylinders for automatically infolding and supporting the bottom side flaps. The rotary cylinders are actuated by a sensor which senses the presence or absence of a carton in the apparatus. The apparatus also includes a unique assembly comprising downwardly inwardly inclined rollers mounted to the conveyor side arm assemblies to urge the carton downward toward the lower sealing head to assure a complete and continuous bottom seal. The apparatus may also include transversely adjustable guardrails, a hold down flange to maintain the carton against the packing plate and a carton urging assembly for urging the carton through the apparatus.

The present invention provides an apparatus that can erect a tray from a generally flat, rectangular blank. The tray erector incorporates an inventory section, a transfer section, a construction section and an exit section. The inventory section has a hopper with flanges and tab stops, which hopper stores an inventory of stacked, flat blanks that will eventually become the trays. In the transfer section, a blank is transferred from the inventory section to the construction section of the present erector. The construction section includes a setup assembly and a locking assembly. The setup assembly folds the pre-cut and scored end and side panels of the tray blank up into approximately perpendicular planes in relation to the plane of the bottom panel of the blank. The end and side panels are folded up from the plane of the bottom panel of the blank in preparation for the locking of the corner webs. While the end and side panels are folded, the corner webs begin to extend out from the tray due to the actions of folding the end and side panels. The locking assembly of the construction section completes the remaining tray folding and locking steps, and an erected tray is produced. This includes folding the web corners against the end panels, and locking the web corners to form the finished tray. The erected tray then drops from the construction section to the exit section, where the tray is guided onto a conveying device, preferably a moving delivery conveyor belt.