Power Conveyors for Unique Bottles

Whether you are placing product in a standard plastic PET bottle or filling up a one-of-a-kind container of a unique shape or size, power conveyors will be necessary if your production rate is on the high side.  The conveyor systems allow bottles or other containers to move from one packaging machine to another without human intervention.  Imagine the time that would be spent moving bottles from a liquid filler to a capping machine to a labeler without the aid of a conveyor system.  While the individual packaging machines add efficiency and consistency to the packaging process, the conveyor system ties them all together.  When dealing with bottles of a unique shape or size, custom conveyor systems may become necessary.

To understand a custom conveyor system, let's first discuss how we define a standard conveyor system.  Liquid Packaging Solutions manufactures conveyor systems in a variety of formats, including low profile conveyors, C-Frame conveyors and sanitary style conveyors.  The materials used to build these conveyors include aluminum, stainless steel and, occasionally, plastic.  Finally, a majority of conveyors will include belt or chain that is anywhere from four to eight inches in width.  By combining any of the types of conveyors, materials and belt widths, you can generally create a number of different "standard" conveyors.  One way that a conveyor could be "custom" would be when it is simply manufactured outside of these norms.

For example, a household product may be packaged in a container with an extremely wide bottom for any number of different reasons.  The frame may be changed slightly to accomodate the width and the conveyor belting may be extended to a 30" width.  Sometimes, this simple change or adjustment to the standard conveyor system is enough to accomodate a unique bottle or container.  

In other cases, the conveyor guide system may need to be altered to handle an oddly shaped container.  Almost all conveyor systems will use guide rails to keep containers moving smoothly down their pre-detemined path.  The guide rails will provide a contact point on the container that will prevent the container from tipping on the conveyor belt and jamming while moving along the system.  Issues occur when a bottle is of abnormal height or symmetry.  Often, the issue can be resolved by using double guide rails on a conveyor system.  Double guide rails allow two contact points on the bottles to steer and stabilize bottles as they move from packaging machine to packaging machine.  

In addition, there will be times when certain components will need to be added to other packaging machienry to assist the conveyor system in filling, capping, labeling and generally moving bottles.  For example, a filling machine may use neck grabbers to stabilize a bottle as it is being filled.  Or a extended stabilizer bar and double gripper belts may be added to a capping machine to assist in the steadying of bottles as the cap is sealed.

Of course, these are only a few examples of how both conveyors and packaging system machines may be customized to handle unique bottle types and sizes.  The changes and adjustments made to packaging machinery will vary on a case-by-case basis.  If you have a unique packaging project you would like to discuss, call the Packaging Specialists at Liquid Packaging Solutions toll-free today at 1-888-393-3693.