Patent ID: 7464485

Claim:
An apparatus for dehumidifying and drying resin pellets comprising: a feed-in hopper section for receiving resin pellets supplied to the inside thereof; a first opening/closing member for opening and closing an upper aperture arranged in the feed-in hopper section; a first cylinder section having an end connected to and held in communication with the delivery side of the feed-in hopper section, the first cylinder section having a hollow section in the inside with a longitudinal axial line and rotatably supporting a first transfer screw in the inside thereof; a first electric motor for driving the first transfer screw to rotate at a required rotary speed; a first heating member for heating longitudinally divided regions of the first cylinder section to produce differentiated respective heating effects; a second cylinder section arranged continuously from and in parallel with the first cylinder section, said second cylinder section having a hollow section in the inside and rotatably supporting a second transfer screw in the inside thereof; a second electric motor for driving the second transfer screw to rotate at a required rotary speed; a second heating member for heating the entire second cylinder section; a delivery hopper section connected to an end of the second cylinder section to contain the resin pellets transferred through the first and second cylinder sections and deliver them to a raw material supply section of a resin molding machine; a second opening/closing member for opening and closing an aperture of a connection part of the second cylinder section and the delivery hopper section; an air supply section for supplying air at least to the inside of the first cylinder; an air exhaust member for delivering air from the inside of the first cylinder and that of the second cylinder to produce a required low pressure level there; and control means adapted to operate in a first dehumidifying and drying mode of controlling the heating operation of the first heating member for heating longitudinally divided regions of the first cylinder section to produce differentiated respective heating effects and that of the second heating member for uniformly heating the second cylinder section so as to crystallize the supplied non-crystallized resin pellets and subsequently dehumidifying and drying them and in a second dehumidifying and drying mode of controlling the heating operation of the first heating member and that of the second heating member for uniformly heating the first and second cylinder sections so as to dehumidifying and drying the supplied crystallized resin pellets.