Relco Capless Induction Sealing Systems Case Studies 2001-2005

Relco Capless Induction Sealing Systems
Case Studies 2001-2009
Yves Rocher
Customer:
Yves
Date: August
Container:
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
Post Script:
Rocher (Ireland)
2004
45mm Diameter PP twin part
3600 containers/hour
FCS-Auto 3 head fully automatic foil cutting & sealing
machine with quick change ceramic cutting heads and
internal induction sealing coils. Relco P800 induction
generators, SMC pneumatics, Siemens PLC, colour
touch screen HMI and Siemens electrical control
equipment
Machine to be fully integrated into automated filling
and packaging line provided by Marchesini of Italy in
order to communicate with filler up-stream and capper
down-stream. Customer selected foil used on
container had to make good hermetic seal but remain
easy to peel and give good aesthetic appearance.
Machine had to be built to allow it to be used on a
range of possible future container designs and sizes.
Full set of change parts built and provided in June
2005 for sealing new ‘Inositol’ container.
Lucky Strike
Customer:
British
Date: April
Container:
66mm
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
American Tobacco (Sweden)
2005
Diameter tin-plate
4000 containers/hour
FCS-Auto 4 head system with independent foil drive
system and carriage mounted sealing heads with
ceramic cutters and internal induction coils. Presealing accumulation and servo driven flighted in-feed
belt. Relco P800 induction generators, Mitsubishi Fx
series PLC, colour touch screen HMI, Mitsubishi
servo drive and control equipment, SMC pneumatics
Machine had to be built to cut and seal foil to print
register marking in order to form a ‘label’ effect on the
seal. Peelable hermetic seal to be applied to a tinplate can. Sealing machine had to be integrated into
a Flex-Link conveyor system and the entire unit had
to be made capable of jacking up and wheeling from
line to line. Complete machine had to be taken from
design phase to commissioning within 12 weeks, this
was successfully completed and product was in the
marketplace on schedule for commercial launch.
Note to photos: Sadly this machine was so fast in build and shipment that it
escaped our factory before we could get any photos of the finished article.
L’Oreal
Customer:
L’Oreal
Date: November
Container:
92mm
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
Post Script:
(Wales)
2001
Diameter PP
3000 containers/hour
3 Head automatic foil cutting and sealing machine
using tool steel punch & die sets, transferring to
induction sealing heads with vacuum foil retention for
foil location. Relco ICS-1G induction generators,
Mitsubishi Fx series PLC, Mitsubishi inverters and
controls, SMC pneumatics.
Customer container and cap not suitable for
conventional (foil lined cap) induction sealing due to
insufficient down-force from closing torque of cap to
ensure even sealing pressure across entire diameter
of seal. Machine required to locate and directly
induction seal foil onto container before the
application of cap. Reel feeding of material more
convenient, cheaper and longer running than
magazine feeding so machine designed to work using
a web of foil, cutting into the correct profile then
transferring onto container. Machine installed and
gave excellent results helping the Llantrisant plant win
first place in the annual world-wide L’Oreal
competition for production engineering excellence.
Following successful installation at the Llantrisant
plant, further identical machines were built and
supplied to L’Oreal factories in Poland and Mexico.
DPC
Customer:
Diagnostic
Products Corp (Wales & USA)
Date: March
2001
Container:
3
Cavity (3 x 8mm) reagent wedge
Output Requirement:
8-10 containers/minute
Machine Type:
Single head semi automatic foil cutting and sealing
machine working from reel fed material, tool steel
punch & die sets, delryn foil transfer mechanism and
external induction sealing coil. Relco ICS-1G
induction generator, Mitsubishi PLC and control
equipment, SMC pneumatics.
Technical Challenges:
Seal to be accurately cut and located so as to provide
an even hermetic seal over all three openings of
container in one strip. This foil strip was to withstand
15 in/Hg of vacuum on test but be capable of peeling
away easily in one piece. Machine to have calibration
points and be built for clean-room operation.
Post Script:
Following successful use of small scale semi-auto
unit, ICS-1G induction generators and sealing heads
were supplied to a third party OEM machine builder
for integration into two fully automatic line units for
high speed output.
Domnick Hunter
Customer:
Domnick
Date: October
Container:
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
Hunter (England)
2004
56mm Diameter surgical water filter
12-15 parts/minute
FCS-1 semi automatic foil cutting and sealing system.
Single head unit with manual component location in
retainer, on cycle start product indexed into sealing
area and guard closed, foil then automatically cut,
located and induction sealed. Ceramic foil cutting tool
with integral induction sealing coil and vacuum
transfer device. Relco P800 induction generator,
SISA2 induction field monitoring device for 100% QA
profiling, Mitsubishi Fx PLC and control equipment,
SMC pneumatics.
Machine to be capable of delivering and applying
validated hermetic seal onto component. All stainless
steel construction and suitable for use in class 100
clean room. Induction sealing cycle to be monitored
for every unit sealed and pass/fail output given for
deviation outside given parameters. Relco designed
and built SISA2 signal analyser in order to meet this
need.
Zork
Customer:
ZORK
Date: December
Container:
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
(Australia)
2004
ZORK® wine bottle closure
40 cycles/minute
Relco P-800 induction generator with custom built
single-shot sealing head and internal air cooling.
Generator and sealing head to be integrated within
automatic assembly machine using induction system
to weld foil into closure. Machine must be capable of
delivering a seal in a short time. The P-800 generator
and single-shot sealing head proved capable of
bringing the foil to sealing temperature in just 0.3
seconds.
Mono-Cap
Customer:
Viki-Plast
Date: July
Container:
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
(Poland)
2001
58mm HOD water bottle closure
3600 closures/hour
Automatic foil cutting and sealing machine with 4
sealing heads (two sets of two on rotary arm) and two
cutting tools. Machine includes bulk cap hopper and
feeder, vibratory cap sorter, feeding chute, indexing
cap conveying system, inspection and rejection
system, finished product counter and box feeder.
Relco ICS-1G induction generators, Mitsubishi PLC,
Inverters and control equipment, SMC pneumatics.
Sort caps from bulk hopper feed down chute and
place onto machine conveyor in correct orientation.
Index foil to register print mark, cut and seal to top of
closure so as to provide hermetic seal over opening of
cap where this fits onto water dispensing machine.
Check for defective seals and reject where required,
count and feed finished product into boxes for
shipping.
Kronenbourg
Customer:
Scottish
Date: May
Container:
44mm
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
Courage (Scotland)
2003
diameter PET
15-18 containers/minute
MIT-1 semi-automatic induction sealing machine.
Direct contact induction sealing head with vacuum foil
location system. Relco P800 induction generator,
Omron control system and SMC pneumatics.
Foil to be accurately located on container and precise
even application of sealing pressure provided whilst
induction heating the foil seal. Using the MIT-1
machine and pre-cut foil discs the customer was able
to create a hermetic seal to prevent the 45% alcohol
product from leaking or evaporating.
Green Farms Peanut Butter
Customer:
National
Date: October
Container:
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
Foods (Saudi-Arabia)
2004
64mm Glass & 68mm PET
3200 containers/hour
FCS-Auto, 3 head automatic foil cutting and sealing
machine. Quick change ceramic cutting tools with
internal induction sealing coils. Relco P800 induction
generators, Mitsubishi PLC and colour touch screen
HMI, Mitsubishi control equipment and SMC
pneumatics.
The machine had to be able to work from reels of foil,
cutting and locating on the container then induction
sealing in place. Three sizes of PET containers and
one glass container had to be sealed on the same
machine so a quick-change tooling and easy format
change were important.
Worldwide Dispensers
Customer:
Date: January
Container:
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
Worldwide Dispensers / DS Smith Plastics
2006
14mm Ø Wine box valve
100 units/minute
Punch&Seal foil cutting and sealing heads built for
integration into OEM assembly machinery. Heads sit
over rotary indexing table carrying product, when
product is delivered under the heads the foil disc is
cut and driven directly onto the component where it is
induction sealed in place. Utilising Relco P800
induction generators and patented ceramic cutting &
sealing tooling.
Accurately cutting and locating a 14mm diameter foil
disc onto a small sealing land area at high speed.
Providing a foil seal which can easily be removed by
the customer but which is sufficiently secure.
Designing the system in such a way as it can easily
be mounted onto third party handling equipment and
controlled by the main machine PLC. Providing a
means of monitoring the quality and integrity of each
foil seal made.
Lee Kum Kee
Customer:
Lee Kum Kee Foods, Guangzhou - China
Container:
300ml multi-layer PET
Output Requirement:
3600 containers/hour
Machine Type:
FCS-Auto 3 head system in all stainless steel
construction, food grade build with wash-down
capability. Incorporating screw-feeding of containers
and an over-pressure cabinet with HEPA air filtration
for clean sealing.
Technical Challenges:
Product is hot-filled with liquid product and has to be
directly sealed before further processing. The
container has to be carefully handled to avoid spilling
product or distorting the bottle and then necksupported so sealing pressure is not transferred into
the base of the bottle. Seal strength had to be
sufficient to withstand post-sealing processing.
Machine had to incorporate automatic head-height
adjustment for different sizes of bottles.
Vie
Customer:
Fords
Date: November
Container:
29mm
Output Requirement:
Machine Type:
Technical Challenges:
Packaging Systems - Unilever Emig (Germany)
2004
diameter multi-layer PP
36000 containers/hour
36 head rotary sealing machine built in conjunction
with Fords Packaging systems. This operates using
Fords capping press to form the foil and transport via
cap applicator chute onto advancing bottle then the
bottle and foil cap are indexed into the rotary sealer
where each cap is pressed down onto the bottle by
the dedicated sealing head. Whilst under pressure a
precisely measured pulse of induction energy is
delivered into the foil in order to make the seal. Fords
capping press and rotary turret with 36 Relco P800
induction generators and custom built air cooed
induction sealing heads.
Provision of high integrity induction seal whilst also
maintaining consistency of seal quality over all 36
sealing heads. Product is hot-filled and as a result
there is immediate pressure generated in the headspace of the container. The seal must be able to
withstand this pressure build up without failing.
New Similac Pack
Customer:
Abbott
Container:
Multi-layer
Labs & Fords Packaging Systems
custom container with hinged lid
Output Requirement:
Confidential
Machine Type:
Fords press & rotary turret with Relco P800 Induction
Generators and custom induction sealing heads
Technical Challenges:
Design of an induction sealing head which will
distribute the electromagnetic field in such a way as to
create an even seal on an asymmetric profiled
container with a large folded back tab.
Nestlé – Munch Bunch Squashums
Customer:
Nestlé
Container:
Lightweight
PET Strawberry
Output Requirement:
12,000 containers/hour
Machine Type:
FCS-12 head OEM system in all stainless steel
construction, food grade build with wash-down
capability. Designed and built to be incorporated into
customers’ own linear blow-moulding & filling machine
Technical Challenges:
Changes not possible to existing machine design so
sealing system had to be designed to fit directly within
a limited space. Sealing stations have to transport cut
foil material down 100mm from punching onto waiting
container below and land with high degree of
accuracy. Foil material has to be capable of being
changed without stopping machine, magazine system
built to provide 8 minutes of run-time and splicing
station added to allow this to be done.
Glove-Box Isolation Sealing Machine
Customer:
Confidential
Container:
Range of sizes from 100ml to 1L.
Output Requirement:
Low volume – Manual product loading
Machine Type:
FCS-R Isolation Specification
Technical Challenges:
Capless induction sealing machine with automatic foil
cutting and location designed to fit within a La
Calhène Isolation Glove-box for aseptic filling and
sealing. Machine has to be fully sterilizable with H²O²
or Peracetic Acid solutions.
Due to the cumbersome nature of the gloves,
machine operation, foil loading, container loading and
cycle start have to be made very simple and userfriendly.
Agros Nova
Customer:
Agros
Nova, Poland
Container:
250ml multi-layer PP
Output Requirement:
3600 containers/hour
Machine Type:
FCS-Auto 3 head system in all stainless steel
construction. Machine built to food standards with
wash-down protection and screw feed bottle transport
system.
Technical Challenges:
Product is hot-filled with liquid jam and has to be
directly sealed before going through heat treatment
process at 95 degrees Centigrade. Product handling
has to operate to prevent spilling contents or
squashing softened plastic container after hot-filling.
New neck support system designed to clamp around
thread of bottle since there is no transport ring on the
neck.
The container has to be carefully handled to avoid
spilling product or distorting the bottle and then necksupported so sealing pressure is not transferred into
the base of the bottle. Seal strength had to be
sufficient to withstand post-sealing processing.