Apparatus for making a continuous thermoplastic fleece

In an apparatus for making a plastic filament web and having arranged in a vertical stack starting from the top

• an extruder releasably mounted on a platform, connected to a spinneret, and supplying molten plastic thereto for formation of downwardly moving plastic streams,
• a blowing unit directly beneath the spinneret cooling the streams and forming them into downwardly moving plastic filaments,
• a stretching gap directly beneath the blowing unit stretching the plastic filaments,
• a diffuser shaft directly beneath the stretching gap looping the stretched plastic filaments, and
• a foraminous conveyor directly beneath the diffuser shape receiving the looped and stretched filaments as a fleece and transporting the fleece horizontally out of the apparatus, the improvement comprising:
• a lowermost housing containing the conveyor, adapted to sit directly on a stationary support surface, and having an upper surface;
• an uppermost housing spaced above the lowermost housing, supporting the extruder platform, containing at least the spinneret, and having a lower surface;
• a plurality of intermediate housings stacked one atop the other between the lowermost and uppermost housings, containing the blowing unit, the stretching gap, and the diffuser shaft and each having a lower surface and an upper surface, each lower surface directly engaging and fitting complementarily to the upper surface of the underlying housing, the intermediate and uppermost housings being substantially wholly supported on the underlying housings and forming therewith a self-supporting tower supporting the platform;
• and
• support members in the lowermost housing extending from the upper surface of the lowermost housing into the stationary support surface and supporting the intermediate and uppermost housings on the stationary support surface.