Elscint recently manufactured a machine for feeding of plastic vails (bottles), dispensing tablets and closing of the vials / bottles. The equipment consisted of a vibratory bowl feeder for feeding vials which were having diameter 30 mm x 70 mm with a open lid which was attached to the vial on one side. As the number of vials which could be accommodated in the bowl feeder were less (just about 150 numbers) even after using Model 400 HD with a bowl diameter of 800 mm, an extra capacity belt elevator was provided with 125 ltr. capacity which could store around 2000 vials. A level controller provided in the bowl started and stopped the elevator as per the level of components in the bowl being less or more. The vials were oriented with the open side up and the lid on one side and taken forward on a linear vibratory track of 800 mm length. At the end of the track, a pneumatic singulator and pusher was used to push the vials onto the first station of an 8 station indexing table. The various operations were –
- First Station- Vials are loaded onto the indexing table
- Second Station – A single tablet having diameter 3 mm x 2 mm thickness gets loaded into the vials. For feeding of the tablets, Model 160 with a bowl diameter of 200 mm, completely machined from stainless steel was used. The tablets were then carried forward on a linear track of 300 mm length and then a single tablet was singulated and dropped into a tube which dropped the tablets into the vial.
- Third Station – A Keynes make camera used checks whether the tablet was present in the vial.
- Fourth Station – Any vial without the tablet was blown out into a bin.
- Fifth Station – Used for closing the lid of the vial
- Sixth Station – A pneumatic cylinder ensures that the vial is completely closed.
- Seventh Station – Removal of the closed vials
- Eighth Station – Blank
A speed of 60 vials per minute was achieved in the complete operation. Siemens make PLC and HMI were used for this application. The complete equipment was mounted on a stand.
The equipment was delivered by air freight to the customers place in the United Kingdom. You can watch the video of this equipment.