FR2810304A1 - Packaging for white goods, televisions, computers, hi-fi, camera, etc. includes wedges surrounded by film; parts of film forming skates are combined with surfaces of wedges - Google Patents

Abstract

A package around a piece of equipment includes wedges attached to the equipment and surrounded by a film. Parts of the film forming skates are combined with the surfaces of the wedges. An Independent claim is included for the following: (a) Packaging a piece of equipment as above includes attaching the pieces of film to the wedges and then enveloping the equipment with the wedges in between them. Preferred Features: The wedges are of honeycomb cardboard. The pieces of film are glued to the wedges.

Description

The present invention relates to a packaging for the packaging of devices whose bodywork must be protected, with the aid of a film placed on the apparatus, receiving shims and an outer packaging in which is placed the apparatus provided with holds .

The invention also relates to an appliance packaging package implementing a package of the type defined above.

At present, many appliances such as home and leisure appliances such as televisers, hi-fi systems, computers, worm machines, refrigerators, ovens or even small appliances are packaged in a special way. to protect their cladding usually called bodywork.

This element of aesthetics is extremely important and any apparent defect usually requires the declassement of the device, that is to say its sale at a reduced price, or even its scrapping.

It is therefore extremely important to protect such devices well not only to prevent possible shocks at the time of their handling from deteriorating their functional organs, allowing them to function properly but also and this is very important. their dress or bodywork.

Therefore, currently, one of the methods or means of packaging such devices is to wrap the device with a protective film and then place shims on the device and finally to set up an outer packaging or by placing the device with its protective film and shims in this package or by placing the package around the device with its protective film and shims.

The protective film has the function of avoiding damage to the body by the friction of the shims. In fact, the shims are generally made of cardboard or expanded polystyrene (EPS), materials having a certain rigidity and especially hardness, which may scratch or skate the surface of the apparatus at the point of contact with the shims. Such scratches or skidings due to vibration during transport possibly to relative movements during impacts, are likely to cause the derating of the device or its destruction.

For this reason, the device is first wrapped with a protective film then place the shims and finally apply the outer packaging.

This outer package may be a cardboard box or a shrinkable film or a cover or sleeve that is stretchable. This known technique is satisfactory by its results, but it has particular serious drawbacks from the point of view of material consumption, cost, especially for the establishment and because of the treatment of packaging after use.

These disadvantages can be summarized in the following way: The application of a protective film on the entire surface of the body of the apparatus requires the use of a large surface of protective film, which in fact only serves at the contact surfaces in the wedges and the body of the appliance.

The exposure time of the non-glare protective film. Even if the film is often placed around the apparatus by means of a rotating arm device enveloping the apparatus helically, all the operations can be mechanized and above all the presence of an operator is required, which finally results in a significant amount of labor.

Finally, since the characteristics of the material result in more or less variable thicknesses of the protective film on the apparatus, the shims must take account of the random folds or thicknesses of material that form. It is therefore necessary to provide on the holds, a game corresponding to the largest interval necessary. However, often this game is excessive so that the wedges, once mi in place, no longer offer intimate contact with the body of the device (with interposition of the film); if the holds can no longer fully ensure their damping effect since they are no longer perfectly in contact with the device.

The present invention aims to remedy these drawbacks and proposes to develop a packaging and a packaging process to reduce both the cost of materials used for packaging and the time required for the implementation of the invention. packaging while ensuring a perfectly effective protection of the products and in particular bodywork against any deterioration of their appearance by also allowing to treat the diversity of materials constituting the packaging, facilitating selective sorting.

To this end, the invention relates to a package of the type defined above, characterized in that pieces of film forming pads are combined with the bearing surfaces of the wedges, in contact with the bodywork.

This package according to the invention minimizes the surface of the protective film used without this being to the detriment of the effectiveness of the protection of the coach of the apparatus. Wedges which are thus only separated by a minimum deviation of the surface of the apparatus, can be applied regularly against this surface or receive it without creating points of excessive stress, which can damage the apparatus.

In other words, holds play their role much more effectively.

The gain in material is added in a very significant way a gain in exposure time for the user the packaging corresponding to the time of introduction of the protective film around the device represents an important part of the time required for the realization packaging in the device. As this film is removed and it is di rectly connected to the shims, the invention effectively eliminates the time of setting up the film.

At reception or after unpacking, the invention also has considerable advantages because, on the one hand, the quantity of packaging products to be treated by recovery or otherwise is significantly reduced, but in addition these materials are perfectly separable thus putting a selective sorting.

According to an advantageous characteristic, the ca are cardboard honeycomb structure and the film is deposited on the edge of the wedges, that is to say in a plane substantially perpendicular to that of the ribs constituting the nest structure. bees.

It is also very interesting to make the shims in expanded polystyrene, by molding / injection. The film covering the bearing surface of the shim is preferably placed in the mold to be, in a way, overmolded.

According to the invention, the film constituting the pads of the shims is either expanded extruded polyethylene or nonwoven polypropylene. In a very interesting way, the polyethylene film has a thickness of preferably between 1 and 3 millimeters and the polypropylene film is very thin and its thickness is, in general, less than 1 millimeter. Thus, overall, the thickness of the film constituting the pad is very low which allows the wedges to play their full role.

The invention also relates to a method for packaging devices to be protected, which method is characterized in that pieces of protective film having a surface which at least makes it possible to cover the bearing surface of a shim on the surface are taken. Bodywork of the product provided ner, we fix a piece of film on a shim associated, it is veloppe the product with the outer packaging with interposition shims.

The method according to the invention makes it possible, for example, to make cardboard wedges with a honeycomb structure, by applying a protective film to a cardboard plate with a honeycomb structure and by cutting off blocks forming the wedges in the plate thus provided with a protective film. According to the method of the invention, the protective film is attached to the bearing surface of the wedge either by molding or by injection of the plastic wedge, by placing the film in the mold.

According to another advantageous feature, the protective film forming the shoe is fixed in one or more grooves formed in the shim in which a portion of the protective film intended to protect the bearing surface (s) of the shim is shirred.

It is also possible to fix the protective film forming the pad by means of a portion of the support surface of the shim with a non-definitive gluing agent. This allows to simply separate film and the hold after unpacking, at the time of sorting.

The present invention will be described below in more detail with the aid of the accompanying drawings in which - Figures 1A-1C schematically show three steps of the packaging method according to the known technique.

FIGS. 2A-2C show three stages and a variant of the packaging method or the introduction of a package according to the present invention; FIGS. 3A-3D show different stages of the method of manufacturing wedge blocks with a cardboard box; bee structure according to the invention, - Figure 4 is a perspective view of a forex mat protective device wedge pads according to the invention, - Figure 5 shows in perspective the implementation of the together of Figure 4 around an apparatus here constituted by a television receiver.

In order to highlight the characteristics of the invention, a brief review of the known art will be made here on the basis of FIGS. 1A-1C.

According to FIG. 1A, which corresponds to the first step of a method of placing a package according to the known technique, an apparatus 1 is shown schematically by a rectangle, with a protective film 2. This installation consists of to wrap the device 1 by surrounding it generally with strips of protective film 2.

After this first installation, which contravenes the exaggerated drawings of FIG. 1, directly applies the protective film 2 against the outer surface of the apparatus 1, the shims 3 are put in place. These wedges are intended to protect the parts left of the device 1 with its protective film 2 or the fragile parts defining a gap between the body and the outer packaging. In the case of a device 1 having a rectangular parallelepiped shape, the shims 3 are placed along the edges or even some are placed at the corners. In the first case, the wedges comprise a bearing surface 31 in the form of orthogonal dihedron. In the case of these placed at the corners of the apparatus 1, their bearing surfaces are three orthogonal elementary surfaces.

Finally, Figure 1C shows the finished package. The apparatus 1 provided with its protective film 2 and shims 3 is placed in an outer packaging 4. This outer packaging can receive the assembly formed of the elements 1, 2, 3. The outer packaging 4 can also be applied around all the elements 1, 2, 3.

This outer package 4 may be a carton having the appropriate shape or a shrink film or cover which after their introduction is retracted thermally.

According to another solution, the envelope 4 is a stretchable cover that is pulled under tension on the assembly 1, 2, 3 and retracts after its introduction, so as to hold all the elements 1, 2 firmly together. , 3, as in the case of heat shrink.

The present invention will be described hereinafter with reference to FIGS. 2A-5.

Figure 2A schematically shows a shim of a package according to the invention. This Wedge 100 in the shape of a square, comprises two surface elements 101, 102 constituting the bearing surface of the wedge on the device to be protected.

These bearing surface members 101, 102 receive a piece of film 110 forming a pad. This film is schematized by an orthogonal dihedral for the sake of simplification. This pad 110 is applied against the surface 101, 102 and is fixed in a removable manner, for example with the aid of a non-final adhesive, allowing the unpacking or more precisely at the time of the selective sorting of used packaging, pare the film 110 of the hold 100.

Figure 2A 'shows an alternative embodiment of the shim and its pad. The wedge is also schematically a form of square. Its elements on the bearing surface 101 ', 102' are schematically provided with grooves 103 ', 104', into which a fold 11 '', 112 'of the piece of film 110' constituting the pad is introduced. The pad 110 'is thus simply hooked by friction by its folds 111', 112 'to the shim 110'.

Figure 2B shows the second step of the packaging method or embodiment of the package according to the invention. According to this step, the shims 100, 100 ', provided with their pads, not explicitly referenced here, are placed around the device 200, for example at its edges or corners.

Finally, according to FIG. 2C, the pre-packaging thus produced according to FIG. 2B is surrounded by the outer packaging 300, which may be either a cardboard box in which the pre-packaging according to FIG. it is applied around the pre-packaging and that is closed, for example by a heat-shrinkable film.

Figures 3A-3D show a variant of the package according to the invention. In the variant shown in Figures 3A-3D, the wedges are cardboard honeycomb structure. Whereas in the case of FIGS. 2A-2C, shims 100, 100 'are preferably made by injection molding or by cutting an angled section made of an expanded material, such as expanded polystyrene (EPS). .

For the production of such shims, according to FIG. 3A, a honeycomb cardboard 400, that is to say a structure formed of an outer surface 401 and another outer surface 402, parallel to the first and separated by ribs 403 placed on edge, the assembly constituting a so-called honeycomb structure. Indeed, the ribs placed on edge 403 form an alveolar structure, similar in appearance to a bee hive plate (honeycomb) and whose lids are in fact replaced by the two surfaces 401, 402 .

On one of the faces of such a cardboard honeycomb structure plate shown in Figure 3A is placed a protective film 404 fixed for example by a non-permanent adhesive.

structure 400, thus coated with the film 404, is then cut into pads according to the cut lines 405 re presented in Figure 3C to finally give pads 410.

These pads 410 are used as the pads described above. To form studs constituting a dihedron or an angle piece, simply joins two or more pads on a base surface for this setting square.

Such an example is given in FIGS. 4 and 5. FIG. 4 shows a support 500 receiving pads 410 such as those described with reference to FIGS. 3A-3D. these studs are distributed on the cardboard blank preferably ruled and cut to its final shape, appropriate places.

Then, the assembly is folded along the predefined fold lines, possibly with zones of reinforcement, to take the form of the part 600 provided with different studs 410 as shown in FIG. 5. This piece 600 is placed on the 700 device.

Figure 5 shows that the device 700 has been placed in a base or base 800 provided with a cavity. This example also illustrates the various possibilities offered by the invention, according to which apparatus is not necessarily installed integrally in pads or shims but can be placed in different protective parts and only fraction of the envelope of the apparatus is protected by studs.

Finally, the assembly is placed in a carton or an outer packaging, retractable, not shown.

The film constituting the skids preferably extruded polyethylene (PE), expanded, or non-woven polypropylene.

The expanded polyethylene film can be complexed with an unexpanded polyethylene film to be more resistant to tearing.

The polyethylene film preferably has a thickness in the range of 0.3 to 3 mm and the polypropylene film is preferably very thin and less than 1 mm thick.

Claims (1)

<U> REVENDICATI 0 NS </ U> Packing for the packaging of apparatus the bodywork of which is to be protected by means of a film placed on the apparatus receiving shims and an outer packaging in which the apparatus is placed apparatus with holds, characterized in that pieces of film forming pads are combined with the bearing surfaces of the blocks, in contact with the bodywork. Packaging according to claim 1, characterized in that wedges are cardboard honeycomb structure structure. Packaging according to claim 1, characterized in that shims are expanded polystyrene (EPS). Packaging according to claim 1, characterized in that the film constituting the pads is expanded extruded polyethylene (PE) or nonwoven polypropylene. Packaging according to claim 1, characterized in that the film constituting the pads is expanded polyethylene complexed with an unexpanded polyethylene film. 6) Packaging according to claim 4, characterized in that the polyethylene film has a thickness of the order of 0.3 to 3 millimeters, the polypropylene film is very thin and its thickness is less than 1 millimeter. 7) A method of packaging an apparatus the bodywork of which is to be protected with the aid of a film placed on the apparatus, shims and an outer package receiving the apparatus fitted with shims according to claim 1, characterized in that - Pieces of protective film having a surface allowing less to cover the bearing surface of a shim on the body of the product to be conditioned, - a piece of film is fixed on an associated shim, - the product is wrapped with the outer packaging with interposition shims. 8) Process according to claim 6, characterized in that: wedges made of honeycomb-shaped cardboard are produced by applying film to a cardboard plate with a honeycomb structure and by cutting off the blocks forming the wedges in the plate thus provided with a protective film 9) Method according to claim 6, characterized in that the fi is fixed on the support surface of the wedge when the plastic wedge is molded or injected. placing the film in mold. 10) A method according to claim 6, characterized in that one carries out at least one groove in the wedge and there is enshrined the piece of protective film intended to cover the bearing surfaces of the hold. 11) A method according to claim 6, characterized in that the piece of protective film is fixed at least on a portion of the support surface of the wedge with a non-permanent gluing adhesive agent.