Patent ID: 7171795

Claim:
A transverse sealing mechanism that thermally seals a packaging material in a transverse direction, which is perpendicular to a direction in which the packaging material is conveyed, in a bag-manufacturing and packaging machine that makes bags by sealing a tubular packaging material longitudinally and transversely while also filling the bags with items to be packaged, said transverse sealing mechanism comprising: a plurality of sealing parts that are arranged to circulate on a same circulating path to thermally seal the tubular packaging material by making contact with the tubular packaging material, the circulating path being alongside a direction in which the tubular packaging material is to be conveyed; adjusting means operatively connected to said plurality of sealing parts for adjusting a relative distance between adjacent ones of said sealing parts and a relative angle between adjacent ones of said sealing parts to any desired angle greater than 0Â° and smaller than 360Â° ; and a plurality of drive means operatively connected to each of said sealing parts, each drive means separately driving each sealing part; said adjusting means adjusting the relative distance between said plurality of sealing parts by controlling said plurality of drive means.