The apparatus for shrinking a shrinkable cover to enclose a palletted stack of goods comprises a shrinking device, a conveying system for the palletted stack of goods transported past the shrinking device, a lifting device positioned under the shrinking device for raising the palletted stack of goods and a suction device positioned in the vicinity of the lifting device. The lifting device is located astride the path of the conveyor system thereby eliminating below ground conveyors in favor of driverless automatically controlled floor conveying devices. Part of the lifting device is at least one raisable and lowerable support movable under a palletted stack of goods being guided on the conveyor system. The support has seat members projecting from it for the palletted stack of goods and the seat members are movable from a horizontal into a vertical orientation, especially by rotation of the support about its longitudinal axis.
An apparatus for shrinking a heat-shrinkable hood over a stack of goods has an upright guide adjacent the hooded stack of goods, an upper frame vertically displaceable on the guide and provided with a heater capable of shrinking the hood and a lower frame below the upper frame, vertically displaceable on the guide below the upper frame, and provided with a heater capable of shrinking the hood. Respective upper and lower drives connected to the frames vertically displace same on the guide independently of each other. First the stack of goods is positioned in a treatment station with the hood pulled down over the goods, a lower end edge of the hood hanging down below a lower end of the stack of goods, and an upper closed end of the hood on an upper surface of the stack of goods. Then to secure the hood in place the hanging-down lower end edge of the hood is heated to shrink it in under the lower end of the stack of goods. At the same time the upper closed end of the hood is heated while moving a lower heater vertically upward from the lower end edge of the hood to simultaneously shrink the upper closed end down onto the upper surface of the stack while shrinking side regions of the hood inward into engagement with side surfaces of the stack of goods.
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. Thus the ring need merely be moved upward once the pallet is positioned on the station conveyor within it to preshrink the wrap and drive out the air in it, then is moved down once to its starting position to fully shrink the wrap in place.
A method and an apparatus for shrinking a foil (2) onto an object (1) are in particular used for packaging a stack of goods with a foil hood. Herein, a heating means (4) is moved with a distance to the foil (2) for shrinking said foil (2) onto the object (1) under the influence of heat. In accordance with the invention, at least sectionally the temperature of the foil (2) is measured in order to optimally regulating the heat emission of the heating means (4) to the foil (2). For this purpose, the apparatus is provided with a means (6) for measuring the temperature of the foil (2) and with a means for regulating the temperature of the foil (2). This provides the advantage that the apparatus can be used for different objects independently from their contour, size and position.
