Importance

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Abstract

There is disclosed a pinch sealer drive mechanism for a form fill and seal machine, or the like, wherein a bi-directional rotary actuator is employed to rotate a crank with two oppositely disposed levers, each of which is linked to a slide. Thus, there are two substantially identical symmetrically disposed linkages consisting of a lever, a link and a slide, whereby the slide is caused to have a relatively low velocity at the extremes of its motion, thereby producing a smooth vibration free operating mechanism to which the heat seal bars or other pinch sealing apparatus may be attached. A preferred embodiment of the apparatus has a duplicate of the above described crank, lever, and link mechanism for the distant end of the slide, and the second mechanism is driven from and synchronized with the first by an endless belt drive to one of two sprockets fixed on a rotatable shaft and then from the second sprocket on such shaft to a sprocket connected to rotate the crank of the second mechanism. The actuator for the mechanism is preferably an independently operated pneumatic bi-directional rotary actuator.

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First Claim