Cryovac, Inc.

Furukawa Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Joel Caillier

Gregory E McDonald

Gregory H Grossman

Shuichi Nakamoto

Peter Schmalz

Joe A Price

Rod Hodgson

John L King, Jr

Yoshitaka Nii

Silvio Rohrer

Riccardo Evangelisti

John L King

Gregory E Mcdonald

An apparatus for vacuumizing and sealing a package includes a plurality of platens and vacuum chambers, each chamber adapted to mate with a dedicated one of the platens; a conveying system for conveying the platens and chambers along a generally angular path having a single axis of rotation; an automated loading assembly having a linear component and configured to load a package onto each of the platens; an automated unloading assembly having a linear portion and configured to unload a vacuumized, sealed package from each loaded platen onto an outfeed conveyor; and a vacuumizing/sealing system configured to cause relative movement of each chamber/platen pair, along a portion of the angular path, to form therebetween an air-tight enclosure accommodating the package and effect vacuumization and sealing of the package.

Apparatus and method for vacuumizing and sealing a package

An apparatus () for vacuumizing and sealing a package () includes a plurality of platens () and vacuum chambers (), each chamber () adapted to mate with a dedicated one of the platens (); a conveying system () for conveying the platens () and chambers () along a generally angular path having a single axis of rotation (); an automated loading assembly () having a linear component () and configured to load a package () onto each of the platens (); an automated unloading assembly () having a linear portion and configured to unload a vacuumized, sealed package () from each loaded platen () onto an outfeed conveyor (); and a vacuumizing/sealing system configured to cause relative movement of each chamber ()/platen () pair, along a portion of the angular path, to form therebetween an air-tight enclosure accommodating the package () and effect vacuumization and sealing of the package ().

A vacuum packaging machine for performing a vacuum sealing operation on product packages, comprises a vertical stack of vacuum chamberswhich each manage to receive at least one unsealed product packageand are operable to perform an independent vacuum sealing operation on the least one product package. A conveyor arrangementis operable to load and unload a selected vacuum chamberwith the at least one product package, and the machine is arranged to operate the respective vacuum chambersto perform the vacuum sealing operation while the conveyor arrangement is operated to load and unload another vacuum chamber. The conveyor arrangement loads and unloads the vacuum chambers in sequence, and the vacuum chambers are synchronously operated to perform the vacuum sealing operation to allow the conveyor arrangement to operate continuously. The conveyor arrangement comprises at least one in-feed conveyorand at least one out-feed conveyorwhich are independently movable to select the vacuum chamber to be loaded and unloaded. There may be a plurality of in-feed conveyorsand a plurality of out-feed conveyors. The vacuum chambers each have a sealing bar arranged along one side for sealing the product packages

Vacuum packaging machine

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Cham, Switzerland

Joel Caillier