Heavy duty conveyor

Claim 1

An improved endless magnetic flow deflector article conveyor having a horizontal upper flight and a horizontal lower return flight for transporting an article on said horizontal upper flight along a predetermined path in a given horizontal direction, said conveyor being of the type having a plurality of transversely extending article carriers with outwardly facing article carrying support surfaces adjacent to one another in said given horizontal direction, each independently mounted for independent movement transversely of said given direction on one of a plurality of transversely mounted transversely extending support members, said support members mounted for concurrent movement in said given direction along the upper flight in one orientation and along the lower return flight in the opposite direction in an inverted orientation, said conveyor haing a magnetic guide means and a selectively actuable magnetic switch under said upper flight, and each of said article carriers having a downwardly extending magnetically attractable roller with a vertical axis of rotation whose path may be determined by said switch and said guide means, wherein the improvement includes improved support members having generally vertically and laterally extending web means for respectively providing vertical stiffness to said support members and vertically facing tread surfaces, and improved article carriers having a plurality of rollers with horizontal axes of rotation, said rollers adapted to roll along said vertically facing tread surface of one of said support members, whereby the problem of roller break-away resulting from increased friction caused by heavy articles and by the tendency for heavy articles to deform the elements of said conveyor is reduced to enable more reliable and rapid operation of said conveyor.