Packaging Machine Spotlight - Automatic Inverting Air Rinser

The Automatic Inverting Air Rinsing Machine from Liquid Packaging Solutions allows for liquid-free rinsing of containers on an automated packaging line.  The rinsing machine uses a power conveyor and an indexing system to move bottles into the rinse area where they are inverted over a basin and blasted with compressed air to remove dust and debris.  These rinsers are popular in the food and beverage industry as well as when dealing with pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products, where sanitary packaging lines are a necessity to avoid product contamination.

The Automatic Inverting Air Rinser is manufactured with a portable stainless steel frame.  The stainless steel construction makes the rinser a durable packaging machine, able to absorb vibrations found in many packaging atmospheres.  The portable nature of the frame allows the machine to roll up to almost any power conveyor and become a part of any packaging system.  The power conveyor obviously plays a crucial role in the performance of the automatic rinser as it is used to move bottles into and out of the rinse area.  

The automatic conveyor used for the rinser will also include vision systems to help the rinsing machine perform consistently and efficiently.  The missing bottle vision system essentially counts containers as they enter the rinsing machine.  The rinse cycle of the packaging machine will not begin until the sensor has counted the correct number of containers (that is, the number of containers are equal to the number of rinse heads.)  In addition, an anti-bottle back up system ensures that the rinsing machine will not continue to rinse and release bottles if a bottle jam occurs downstream on the packaging line.  If the anti-bottle back up sensor "sees" a container for an extended period of time, then the flow of containers on the packaging line has been obstructed.  The sensor then "tells" the rinsing machine to pause production until the obstruction has been cleared on the packaging line downstream.  These rinsing machine vision systems, found on the rinsing machine power conveyor, keep both the rinsing process and the packaging system as a whole, running smoothly.

The Air Rinser can also be used with both glass and plastic bottles.  The packaging machine uses bottle grippers with soft pads to grasp the containers before inverting them over the rinse basin.  These soft pad grippers ensure that glass bottles are not shattered and plastic bottles are not marred.  Once the rinse is complete, the bottles are returned to the power conveyor and the bottle grippers release their hold, allowing the containers to move out of the rinsing machine and on to the next packaging phase, such as nitrogen purge or liquid filling.

The air rinsing machine is easily set up and controlled by a PLC with a touchscreen operator interface.  Not only does the PLC make set up easy, but changeover from one container to another can be achieved quickly with little downtime.  The PLC includes a recipe screen and a number of memory locations.  Normally, all of the delay, duration and other set up times are set up at the factory for each bottle to be run on the rinsing machine.  The recipe screen allows the operator of the air rinser to simply enter the number corresponding to the container to be run and all set up parameters are instantly restored to the PLC, leaving the operator to make simple height and width adjustments for new bottles if necessary.

Air rinsing machines can be manufactured with anywhere from one to twelve rinse heads.  For facilities that have low to medium rinsing requirements, a two head rinser may be ideal where growth is expected.  The two head rinsing machine can easily be upgraded to add additional rinse nozzles up to the maximum twelve heads.  In the alternative, semi-automatic and manual rinsing machines are available for those facilities who have low rinsing requirements and do not foresee the need for additional rinsing in the future.

For more information on any of the container cleaning equipment manufactured by Liquid Packaging Solutions, visit our Bottle Rinsers and Bottle Washers page, or call a Packaging Specialist toll free today at 1-888-393-3693.