Patent attributes
An input device delivers objects one at a time to a transfer station next to a conveyor extending in a transport direction. A cassette defines an upwardly open stack well shaped to receive the objects and has a floor. The cassette is held in an upstream stack-forming position underneath the input device while the input device drops the objects one at a time into the well, and the floor of the cassette is stepped downward each time an object is dropped into the well by a distance generally equal to a vertical height of the object. When a predetermined number of the objects has been dropped into the well, the cassette is displaced downstream out of the upstream stack-forming position synchronously with the conveyor at the transport speed while the stack of objects in the well is pushed transversely of the direction out of the well into the conveyor.
