An automotive manufacturer faced a complex container handling challenge. The customer needed a system to effectively mate and reject various sizes of oil containers placed in pucks. These containers were empty at this stage, making the pucks essential for giving the pucks a stable surface during their production process.
Morrison expert engineers designed two systems to achieve this container handling goal. The first system mates the oil filters with the pucks. The empty oil filters are fed into a twist block open side down, where they are carefully inverted 180 degrees and fed into a snug-fitting rail system. This is because the filters at this orientation are not lying flat on the conveyor and are unstable. The containers need help from the rails not to fall over on the production line. The containers are then metered through a timing screw and into a star rotary system. The star pushes each filter in a circular pattern where each piece is placed into an empty puck. At the same time this is happening a second timing screw is feeding and metering pucks to be mated with the filters. After successfully mating, the container is sent onto a third conveyor line downstream for a downstream reject system.
The second system is a reject system for faulty oil filters. There is a timing screw that feeds in the containers to the desired pitch. Then a rail system along with two photoeyes detects the backlog of containers and a pneumatic arm moves itself into position to stop the flow of the containers. The arm can also reject just one container at a time, looking and moving much like a paddle on a pin-ball machine. The arm does this until the reject lane is full, where manual intervention from an operator is needed to clear the lane, allowing the other containers to move down the line. The two photoeyes send a signal to the timing screws stopping them and pushing the arm out.
The timing screws and twist block were created from plastic UHMW that is extremely durable and easy to clean. Everything else was created from powder coated steel, providing a extremely strong and easy to maintain construction.
Morrison effectively addressed the automotive manufacturer’s container handling challenge by designing two specialized systems. The first system successfully mated empty oil filters with pucks, ensuring stable transport down the production line. This was achieved through a combination of a twist block, timing screws, and a star rotary system that precisely positioned the filters into the pucks. The second system provided a reject mechanism for faulty containers, utilizing photoeyes and a pneumatic arm to manage the flow and removal of defective containers. This system allowed the customer to beat their container handling challenge.
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