Apparatus for creating a gelatin coating
AssigneeMcNeil-PPC, Inc.
InventorNorbert I. Berta
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and apparatus for applying coating to products such as medicaments are disclosed. The present invention provides a apparatus comprising product holders and plates which interact with vacuum tubes to retain the product being coated in place while inverted and dipped into a tank of coating material. The vacuum tubes may be designed to hold product of nearly any shape or in any orientation. In a preferred embodiment, methods and apparatus for creating a two-color gelatin coating on a tablet are disclosed. In certain embodiments, additional apparatus are provided whereby the vacuum tubes rotate about their longitudinal axes and are placed in contact with a coating applicator, thereby applying a band or stripe of a coating material to a specified section of the product.
Claims20
Apparatus for applying a coating to a tablet product comprising:
- a first plate having a one or more tablet holder means for retaining the tablet products, said tablet holder means having communication means for receiving one or more vacuum tubes;
- a vacuum chamber means connected to a source of vacuum;
- one or more vacuum tubes disposed within said vacuum chamber and connected to said vacuum source for communicating vacuum forces to said tablet holder means;
- vacuum tube actuator means for raising and lowering said vacuum tubes relative to said vacuum chamber between an actuated position extending from said tablet holder means for retaining said tablet product on the ends of said tubes extending from said tablet holder, and an unactuated position;
- one or more conveyor means for manipulating said plate to position said plate adjacent said vacuum chamber means;
- dip station means for raising and lowering said plate to contact said tablet product with coating material contained in a dip tank means;
- and
- dip tank means for retaining a quantity of coating material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.