Designed against our customers brief to provide a system whereby his packaging machinery could be fed with reels of material with the minimum amount of changeover and downtime.

The Solution was to provide a series of movable reel unwind mandrels which could be preloaded with the packaging material then accurately positioned at the end of the production line and used to directly feed his packaging machinery.

A system using three separate Unwind Mandrels was devised one for use on the machine whilst another would be preloaded with a reel ready to replace the one on the machine and the third kept as a spare for use during maintenance.

The Mandrel itself was to be loaded using an existing combination of Packline's Compac Lifter and Vertical Spindle used to lift the reels in the vertical position from pallet and rotate 90° to the horizontal position ready to place on the Mandrel.
 

Once loaded the reel is held firmly in place by gripping the reels core using the serrated teeth engaged by turning the outer hand wheel. As a secondary safety measure an end cap is fitted to the mandrel making it impossible for the reel to become dislodged during unwind.
 

The Mandrel is supported within a solid bearing housing providing smooth consistent rotation and a retracting index plunger is used to secure the mandrel and prevent rotation during transportation from pallet to machine.
 

The mandrel has a fully adjustable collar allowing for two different reel widths and variations caused through general manufacturers tolerances.