Recipe Screens for Rinsing Machines and Filling Equipment

Automatic rinsing machines and liquid fillers are controlled by the operator of the machine using a touchscreen operator interface found on the control box.  The operator interface allows times to be set for rinsing a bottle, filling a bottle, indexing containers into and out of the machines and various other functions of the automatic packaging machinery.  When a company changes over from one bottle to another for a production run, not only must physical changes be made, such as adjusting conveyor guide rails and sensors, but all the fill times, indexing times and other delay and duration times must be changed.  What may seem like a time consuming, tedious task that also costs a company production time is actually quite a simple task thanks to the packaging machine Recipe screen.

 

In most cases, the Recipe screen will be a screen separate and apart from other screens on the packaging equipment operator interface.  The simple screen consists of three functions, entering a file number, saving data and loading data.  Once the initial setup is completed for any given bottle, the operator can enter a number into the screen and touch the save data button.  All the data for the PLC setup of that bottle is now saved and can be recalled at a future time when the bottle is run again in production.  To recall the data later, the operator simply enters the number on the screen and presses the load data button.  Changeover from one bottle to another will now simply consist of making physical adjustments as noted above, saving an ample amount of setup time.  

 

Note that even with the Recipe screen available for the storage of container information on the rinsers and fillers, Liquid Packaging Solutions always encourages keeping a hard copy of the delay and duration times in the event that the machine is damaged, a recipe is deleted or the data is otherwise lost.  A file will need to be kept for the actual recipe numbers (which bottle is which recipe) and taking a little extra time to record the setup details can save a lot of time in the future.

 

When packaging machinery is factory tested with customer product and containers, the recipes will likely be loaded into the container cleaning equipment or filling machine at the factory.  If not, recipes will be obtained by the technician at the install or by the operators of the machinery once the equipment arrives at their site.  This means that the worst case scenario involves finding rinse times, fill times and other delay and duration times only at the initial startup of the packaging machinery.  Once these settings have been achieved once, they can be stored in the PLC for later recall at the Recipe screen.

 

If you have questions regarding Recipe screens, rinsing machines, filling equipment or any other packaging machinery, feel free to contact Liquid Packaging Solutions, Inc. toll free at 1-888-393-3693.