Vertical Wrapping Wheel for Cigarette Packaging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing packaging machines for cigarettes are bulky, structurally complex, and costly due to the need for multiple wrapping conveyors, making them difficult to maintain and control.
Innovation Solution
A compact packaging machine design featuring a single vertical wrapping wheel with peripheral pockets that accommodates cigarettes, collars, and outer wrapping sheets, driven by independent brushless electric motors for simplified operation and maintenance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If multiple wrapping conveyors are used to wrap cigarettes with collars and outer wrapping sheets, then the wrapping function is achieved, but the machine becomes bulky and structurally complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the functions of multiple wrapping conveyors into a single wrapping wheel that performs all wrapping operations. The wrapping wheel includes multiple pockets that sequentially receive collars, groups of cigarettes, and outer wrapping sheets, eliminating the need for separate conveying systems while achieving the same wrapping result.
Solution Approach 2:
The wrapping wheel serves multiple functions simultaneously: it acts as a conveyor, a positioning device, and a wrapping mechanism. Each pocket on the wheel sequentially performs receiving, positioning, and wrapping operations, making the single device universal and replacing what would traditionally require multiple specialized conveyors.
2Ease of manufacture
If multiple wrapping conveyors are positioned spatially to perform wrapping operations, then the wrapping process is completed, but the machine becomes costly and difficult to maintain
Solution Approach 1:
By combining multiple conveyor functions into one wrapping wheel with sequential pockets, the patent reduces the number of components that require maintenance. Operators can access and maintain the wrapping wheel and its pockets from a single location rather than navigating complex spatial arrangements of multiple conveyors.
3Volume of moving object
If a single wrapping wheel is used to wrap cigarettes instead of multiple conveyors, then the machine becomes more compact and simpler, but the wrapping wheel must accommodate multiple operations on a single plane
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from the conventional linear arrangement of multiple conveyors to a radial arrangement of pockets on a rotating wheel. This dimensional change allows multiple wrapping operations to occur simultaneously at different angular positions on the same plane, reducing the machine's footprint while maintaining operational complexity through rotational sequencing.
Data Source
AI summary
A cigarette packaging machine provided with a wrapping wheel to wrap products in wrapping sheets. The wrapping wheel has peripheral pockets to receive the products and the wrapping sheets, a first loading station to load the products in succession into the peripheral pockets, and a second loading station to load, in succession, first wrapping sheets of the wrapping sheets into the peripheral pockets. The wrapping wheel also has a third loading station to load, in succession, second wrapping sheets of the wrapping sheets into the peripheral pockets, thus reducing the bulk of a packaging machine.