Importance

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Abstract

Multiple legs elevate a central ring bearing, to which a ring-shaped rotatable plastic sheet support carousel is mounted. The carousel is fitted with a ring gear which engages with a drive system to position the carousel and the thermoplastic sheets supported from it. A multi-post vertical press is positioned with two posts extending upwardly interior to the ring bearing, and two posts extending upwardly exterior to the ring bearing. The ring bearing thus extends through the press, allowing the carousel to supply and remove plastic sheets to and from the press. An upper platen and a lower platen are mounted for vertical displacement to the posts, thereby ensuring a high degree of parallelism between the molds mounted to the platens, and accurate twin-sheet thermoforming. A plurality of rollers are mounted to the outer ring, and an elevated ring track is positioned beneath the outer ring, wherein the rollers engage with the elevated track to support a portion of the loads of the outer ring and the inner ring, the elevated track being positioned between the vertical press exterior posts and the vertical press interior post.

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First Claim