Cigarette quality control device

A quality control device for cigarettes moving through a hopper (1) to a cigarette-packing machine. The hopper has a lower section with a plurality of cigarette-guiding down channels (2) set side by side, with each channel guiding an individual pile of cigarettes (S) downward toward an underlying chamber where a cigarette batch consisting of at least one layer of cigarettes set side by side will be formed and then transferred to the cigarette-packing machine. Near each of the cigarette-guiding channels (2), a cigarette-inspection sensor is provided at one or both ends of the cigarettes to control a cigarette ejection mechanism for discarding any defective cigarette found. In each one of the cigarette-guiding channels (2) there is provided a rotary cigarette-transfer device (3) that separates the respective cigarette-guiding channel (2) into an upper section (12) and a lower section (22). The cigarette-inspection sensors are associated with at least one cigarette position in the upper sections (12) of the channels. Every rotary cigarette-transfer device is so constructed, and so operated by the respective cigarette inspection sensor or sensors, that it transfers every regular cigarette (S) from the upper section (12) to the lower section (22) of a cigarette-guiding channel (2), whereas it moves any defective cigarette (S1) into an intermediate position where the cigarette-ejection mechanism is provided.