Apparatus for coating or encapsulating articles

An apparatus for coating or encapsulating articles, comprising a drum with a perforated wall rotatably mounted in a wrap-around chamber, the drum being suitable for containing and removing a batch of articles to be coated during the rotation of the drum;

• a dispenser group with at least one nozzle for spraying a coating product on the articles contained in the drum;
• at least one gas inlet to the chamber on a first side of the drum to direct clean drying gas against the perforated wall of the drum and at least one gas outlet from the chamber to the other side of the drum, adjacent to the perforated wall of the drum to extract from the chamber dirty drying gas that has passed through the drum, the apparatus comprises a closure system that is adjustable and controlled by a controller, the closure system is interposed between the drum and the at least one gas outlet of the chamber, the closure system defines an effective passage for the dirty drying gas smaller than the passage offered by the gas outlet of the chamber and corresponding to an area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles so that flow of the dirty drying gas is concentrated at the area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles;
• and
• wherein, in order to control the closure system, the controller is configured to automatically adjust the status of the closure system or trigger a recommendation signal, if the status of the closure system is not in concordance with the area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles;
• wherein the dispenser group has an associated mechanism that enables the at least one nozzle to be moved and arranged in a selected position inside the drum;
• and
• wherein a size of the area of the perforated wall of the drum which is effectively covered by the batch of articles is estimated based on the instantaneous position of the at least one nozzle inside the drum and a signal corresponding to the instantaneous position of the at least one nozzle is received by the controller to determine whether the status of the closure system is not in concordance with the area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles.

An apparatus for coating or encapsulating articles, comprising a drum with a perforated wall rotatably mounted in a wrap-around chamber, the drum being suitable for containing and removing a batch of articles to be coated during the rotation of the drum;

• a dispenser group with at least one nozzle for spraying a coating product on the articles contained in the drum;
• at least one gas inlet to the chamber on a first side of the drum to direct clean drying gas against the perforated wall of the drum and at least one gas outlet from the chamber to the other side of the drum, adjacent to the perforated wall of the drum to extract from the chamber dirty drying gas that has passed through the drum, the apparatus comprises a closure system that is adjustable and controlled by a controller, the closure system is interposed between the drum and the at least one gas outlet of the chamber, the closure system defines an effective passage for the dirty drying gas smaller than the passage offered by the gas outlet of the chamber and corresponding to an area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles so that flow of the dirty drying gas is concentrated at the area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles;
• and
• wherein, in order to control the closure system, the controller is configured to automatically adjust the status of the closure system or trigger a recommendation signal, if the status of the closure system is not in concordance with the area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles;
• and
• wherein the apparatus is equipped with a sensor that measures a distance between a measurement point and the free surface of the batch of articles contained in the drum and a size of the area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles is estimated based on the measurement by the sensor, and wherein a corresponding signal from the sensor is received by the controller to determine whether the status of the closure system not in concordance with the area of the perforated wall of the drum that is effectively covered by the batch of articles.