"Nearing completion in the Palamatic warehouse is a fully automatic bag splitting machine destined for operation in a major Blue Chip food sector producer. The plant in Eastern Europe will house the RotaSlit machine, which will be used as front end process infeed for products such as corn grits, rye and whey flour. These products are stored in 25kg paper and plastic bags, which need to be opened and discharged at a rate of 4 bags per minute.
The Palamatic RotaSlit model benefits the customer in several ways. Bags are placed on the infeed conveyor using a Palamatic vacuum tube lifter, which effectively removes all manual handling from the bag lifting operation. Individual bags travel up the inclined belt conveyor, which comprises of small vertical up-stands, spaced at a distance to ensure bags are fed at the required through-put rate.
The cutting action, in this case 5 vertically mounted serrated blades, creates little debris as the bag passes through in a split second. The bag is sliced in to several hoops and the bulk of the contents are immediately discharged past a stainless steel horizontal screw auger in to the vibratory hopper below. Cut hoop sections are transferred by the auger in to a secondary bag processes chamber called a ‘tumble drum'. This rotating mesh drum lifts and tosses the bag hoops in order to separate any residual powder that may be remaining in the bag corners.
The raw ingredient is sifted further in the downstream process. Empty hoops continue through the combined tumbling and screw action in to a waste compaction chamber. This particular machine feeds the waste bags in to a final baling device mounted to one side of the RotaSlit. On a general RotaSlit machine the empty bags are fed out through a compactor tube to be compressed in to polythene tubing. This is a dust tight operation that allows minimal dust escape in to the operating atmosphere. The tubing can be changed over at convenient periods to suit the overall process.
The machine body also houses a dust extraction package comprising of 2 x 10m2 antistatic, polyester filter cartridges with fixed stainless steel end caps.
As this is a food producing process, the machine is manufactured from stainless steel 304 grade, polished to 240S finish internally on surfaces that are deemed as product contact points.
Maintenance access is provided via bolt-on inspection panels and a hinged tumble drum access door. For ease of access when changing over the cutting discs, the knife shaft is also fitted to a hinged door. As an additional safety feature, all hinged doors are fitted with safety interlocks which shut the machine down if opened during operation.
Final delivery is planned for June 2009, with a Palamatic service engineer travelling to oversee installation and commissioning and to carry our training for the operating technicians."
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