Patent ID: 8607538

Claim:
Apparatus comprising a reel-holding unit for a wrapping machine for wrapping a product with a film unwound by a plurality of rollers from a reel and a reel-changing unit provided with a new reel for automatically replacing a finished reel mounted in said reel-holding unit with said new reel, said reel-holding unit and said reel-changing unit being arranged in a reel-change configuration wherein said new reel can be positioned in place of said finished reel, said reel-changing unit including a plurality of vertical elements that define a curvilinear path for an initial portion of said film from said new reel, said elements being arranged in said reel-change configuration such that when a roller of said plurality of rollers is positioned at a curve, at least one of said elements is completely interposed between said film and said roller, said reel-changing unit further comprising a lifting arrangement for moving said elements linearly in a vertical direction between a work position wherein said at least one element is completely interposed between said film and said roller and a disengaging position wherein said at least one element is not interposed between said film and said roller to allow said film to wrap around said roller, said reel-changing unit further comprising supporting means and connecting means, said supporting means including a first plate for supporting the new reel and a second plate for fixing the lifting arrangement, said vertical elements being connected with said connecting means, said connecting means being arranged below said second plate and moved by said lifting arrangement between a work position wherein said vertical elements protrude from respective passage holes in said second plate to engage the film and a disengaging position wherein said vertical elements are retracted within said reel-changing unit under said second plate.