Abstract: A palletizing apparatus has a horizontally displaceable carriage movable on a horizontal member of a frame. A counter-weight is received in one or each of a pair of uprights and is connected via a cogged belt to the lifting slider which is provided with a deflecting roll or pulley about which the belt passes. The support member or lift slider carries the pickup head. The drive for the horizontal movement of the carriage thus does not have to displace the counterweight or counterweights which are provided to balance the weight of the lifting slider and the load.

Abstract: A package of goods having a lower surface is wrapped by first pulling a bag down over the stack until a lower edge of the bag hangs past the stack, then grabbing the hanging lower edge and pulling the grabbed edge down to pull the bag snugly over the package. This grabbed edge is then pressed against the lower package surface and is attached to the lower package surface. The lower edge is grabbed at at least two opposite locations and is there pulled, pressed, and attached. The grabbed edge is pulled down by gripping the grabbed edge and lifting the package. The edge can be attached by gluing it to the surface or by welding it to the surface.

Abstract: A generally parallepipedal package comprised of a stack of goods sitting on a pallet has four horizontally directed sides, vertically oppositely directed top and bottom faces, and upper and lower horizontally extending edges meeting at upper and lower corners. It is wrapped by first securing an end of a stretch foil to the package adjacent the bottom face, then drawing the foil from one of lower corners of one of the sides diagonally across the one side to the diagonally opposite upper corner of the one side while maintaining the foil taut, and then laying the foil on and along the upper edge of the adjacent side extending perpendicularly from the one side to the opposite upper corner with the foil contacting both the top face and the one side.

Abstract: A pallet unit consisting of a stack of articles on a pallet is wrapped both vertically and horizontally with a foil band by orbiting a wrapping satellite in a vertical plane while the unit is supported on a pair of support arms which pass through the orbit for vertical wrapping and the orbit is swung into a horizontal position and raised and lowered for horizontal wrapping of the unit. The vertical wrapping is only effected along two vertical sides of the stack and the foil wrap passes between the skids of the pallet.

Abstract: A shrinking frame for foil wrap or hoods to be shrink wrapped on a stack of goods has a shaft-like configuration of the path for producing hot air within the limbs of the frame between the inlet opening and an outlet slit. The resistance heating rods are located in at least one and preferably both of the segments of the U-shaped flow passage.

Abstract: Goods are packaged by first placing a thermoplastic lower foil atop a pallet with edges of the foil projecting laterally past the pallet and then stacking goods on the pallet atop the foil on the pallet within the edges of the foil. The lower edge of a downwardly open heat-shrinkable foil hood is held as the hood is fitted downward over the stack on the pallet until the lower edge is generally below the stack. This lower edge is then gripped below the stack and the foil hood is shrunk from top to bottom around the stack while continuing to grip the lower edge below the stack. Finally the foil hood is welded to the outer edge of the lower foil. Thus when the grippers are carried on the same vertically displaceable frame as the heater/blowers it is possible for the grippers to release and move upward before the top-to-bottom shrinking of the hood. During such shrinking the clamps will prevent the hood or sack from riding up too much.

Abstract: An apparatus for shrinking a wrapping about goods carried on a pallet has a transport device defining a support surface for displacing the palletized goods in a transport direction and including an upstream conveyor, a station conveyor spaced downstream by an upstream gap from the upstream conveyor, and a downstream conveyor spaced downstream by a downstream gap from the station conveyor. A heat ring has upstream and downstream portions and side portions extending in the direction therebetween. This ring is displaceable between a lower position with the upstream and downstream portions in the gaps below the surface and the side portions flanking the station conveyor and an upper position above the surface. An actuator displaces the ring between its upper and lower positions.

Abstract: An apparatus for packaging a stack of goods by shrinking a shrinkable foil covering on it comprises a delivery mechanism for drawing a foil tubing from a roll of tubing which cuts away a piece from the foil tubing and closes the top of that piece by an end weld seam, and a framelike vertically movable shrinking mechanism which heats all sides of the piece covering the stack of goods. To avoid a premature shrinking of the shrinkable foil covering or the foil tubing a nozzle device for making an air curtain extending substantially horizontally is provided under the delivery mechanism but above the range of travel of the shrinking mechanism and a blower for providing the air flow for the air curtain is connected with the nozzle device.

Abstract: Tight packaging of a load including a stack of goods mounted on a pallet is achieved by lifting the loaded pallet above a conveyor or other supporting surface, pulling a hood of heat-shrinkable plastic foil from above over the load with the rim of the hood projecting below the underside of the pallet, heating that rim to substantially shrinkage temperature for causing it to contract around the pallet periphery, and lowering the load onto the supporting surface to press the hot, contracted hood rim against the bottom of the pallet. The contraction is aided by a blower below the pallet aspirating air toward the center thereof. The remainder of the hood is then thermally shrunk around the load.

Abstract: In order to package a stack of goods in an envelope of heat-shrinkable plastic material such as polyethylene, with prevention of adhesion between the envelope and the goods which may themselves be wrapped in similar sheet material, the stack is placed on a pallet and is covered by the envelope whose lower rim is clamped between the legs of the pallet and an apertured supporting surface such as an upper run of a chain conveyor. The envelope is then inflated from below, by way of the supporting surface, with a low-temperature gas such as ambient air, to establish significant clearances between the stack and the inner surface of the envelope which is then thermally shrunk around the stack by training jets of hot gas onto its outer surface. In zones where the envelope is in contact with the stack, as along edges of the latter, the heating intensity may be reduced to avoid fusion with individual wrappings.

Abstract: A burner for generating hot gases to be used for packaging purposes with thermal shrinkage of plastic foils has an elongate rectangular zone of transition between its pressure-distribution and combustion chambers, spanned by a flame-retaining tube forming narrow passages for the gas flow with the adjacent walls. A number of codirectionally curved sheet-metal baffles equispaced, and of equal radius of curvature, mounted on the downstream side of the tube and extending toward the opposite walls of the chamber, improve the combustion conditions of the gas mixture and lead to a higher velocity of the stream of hot gases leaving the burner, thus increasing the amount of ambient air entrained into the stream and thereby reducing the temperature of the combustion gases.