Adjustable pouch forming, filling and sealing apparatus and methods

Apparatus for filling and sealing pouches and including a spout wheel and a filler wheel for supporting pouches to be filled through spouts carried on said spout wheel, the improvement comprising the combination of:

• a first servo drive for driving said filler wheel;
• a second servo drive for driving said spout wheel;
• said first and second servo drives respectively driving said respective filler and spout wheels independently of each other;
• and
• at least one of said first and second servo drives being controllable to adjust a phase of rotation between said filler wheel and said spout wheel.

A method of filling pouches comprising the steps of:

• feeding separate pouches toward a generally horizontal filler wheel,
• engaging leading and trailing edges of said pouches with respective leading and trailing jaws carried on said horizontal filler wheel;
• and
• selectively pivoting said trailing jaw on an axis generally perpendicular to said horizontal filler wheel to accommodate pouches of varied widths.

A method of handling filled, sealed and separate pouches carried between leading and trailing jaws, including the steps of:

• introducing a top portion of the leading edge of a pouch between two opposed belts;
• releasing a leading jaw from a leading edge of the pouch;
• transporting said pouch between said belts;
• and
• thereafter releasing a trailing jaw from a trailing edge of said pouch.

A method of filling pouches including:

• supporting pouches for filling on a filler wheel;
• filling pouches carried by said filler wheel through spouts disposed on a spout wheel above the filler wheel;
• driving said filler wheel by a first servo drive;
• driving said spout wheel by a second servo drive;
• and
• independently adjusting a rotational position of one of said filler wheel or said spout wheel with respect to a rotational position of the other of said filler wheel or said spout wheel by operating at least one of said first or second servo drives independently of the other to thereby adjust the rotational phase of said filler wheel and spout wheel with respect to each other and thereby accommodate filling pouches of varied width carried by said filler wheel.