Blowmolders and related components offer more options than ever: beverage industry demands spur faster more flexible machines, capable of quick changeover

Dairy Foods, Dec, 2002

If you're in the milk business, you're in the blowmolding business too, at least in the sense that you're probably your own supplier of bottles. So having a reliable, flexible system of blowmolding equipment and related hardware like bottle unscramblers, Silos and sorting tables is crucial.

There is plenty of new technology available in the market, so lets look at a sampling of what's new.

Blowmolders

Perhaps the largest manufacturer of blowmolding equipment, Uniloy Milacron, Manchester, Mich., offers high-volume producers a wide range of plastic blowmolding equipment. The company's diverse line of rugged equipment can process a wide range of resins, manufacture any product characteristic and operate in any production environment. The company offers injection blowmolding equipment for use with a variety of materials, and injection stretch-blow equipment specifically for PET. Its latest offering is an update to the VersaPET line (see item below.)

Sidel USA, Norcross, Ga., manufactures a wide range of machines from 1 to 48 cavities for speeds from 1,000 to 50,000 bph, from 0.2 to 5 liter sizes. Sidel also offers integrated blowing-filling-capping systems. Sidel's systems offer a full range of hygiene capability form standard and clean to aseptic.

Rocheleau Tool and Die, Fitchburg, Mass, offers three affordable blowmolding machines that process a variety of materials.

Unscramblers

If you are blowing bottles for milk, cream products, juice or water, odds are you have a need for multiple bottle sizes. Posimat USA, Miami, has developed a new equipment technology that allows bottlers to use multiple sizes in the same shape and then adjust bottle size without changing parts. The company offers two systems, Posi-switch and Posiflex which allow for quick size changes. Posi-switch is designed for cylindrical bottle of similar diameter. The Posiflex system works with contoured bottles. The adjustment of the selecting pockets and chutes is made by the displacement of its parts, thus, any bottle between a maximum and a minimum predetermined sizes can be unscrambled. The adjustments can be done manually in less than one minute or automatically with a PLC in just seconds.

Pace Packaging Corp., Fairfield, N.J. manufactures the Omni line of bottle unscramblers that are suited for beverage and dairy applications. Five models offer fast, no-tool changeover and floor level access and wide variety of container capabilities.

Silos

Until recently, theories from other industries were applied to the manufacturing of silos. For example, a silo for wheat is manufactured with metal walls for strength. Since the weight of a cubic meter of wheat will be considerably heavy, the silo walls should be very rigid. However, a cubic meter of plastic bottles will only weigh 20 kilos, so this silo may be lighter. Manufacturers now design silos with laminated plastic panels and flexible walls. Silos can also be manufactured of steel and hermetically sealed to allow for pressurization.

Posimat has also developed and claims a patent on an improved silo discharge system. The bottoms of the silos are flat, inclined stainless steel surfaces, the inclination of which can be manually and automatically regulated. The company also says that its Posisilo offers a gentler bottle handling and that its design enables it to be made with less material, making it more affordable than other silos in the market.

The Model RS25 Reciprocating Screw Blow Molder from Rocheleau Tool and Die can be manufactured with up to 8-cavity configurations for single-serve bottles. This highly productive system can be configured to fill bottle demands up to 100,000 pint bottles per day. Non-handled quarts can be produced on the same line, allowing you to create a "family" of bottle sizes to suit all your single serve-packaging needs. Producing your own bottles allows you to customize your bottle for shape, size, fill level, cap specification, etc. Smaller machine size and flexible layout options help to fit the system into typically space-limited blow molding rooms.

Rocheleau Tool and Die

978/345-1723

write in 97

www.rotheleautool.tom

Four new Euro-designed VersaPET machines from Uniloy Milacron make all-electric PET blow molding more affordable and practical. The four additions to the VersaPET line bring the cleanliness, space savings and simplicity of all-electric design to bottling facilities at affordable prices. The VersPET VP-4, VP-5, VP-8 and VP-b reheat stretch blow molding machines offer 4,5,8, and 10 cavity molding of bottles with 28 mm to 38 mm necks in sizes to 3 liters. The VersaPET machines are built to Uniloy specifications by Alkam S.r.L., Treviso, Italy. The machines are designed for quick mold changeover, servo programmability and PC-based control allow push-button setup and machine parameters can be saved as recipes. The compact machines save on space and the all electric design allows for cleaner, quieter more consistent operation. The machine design combines continuous rotary motion through the preform oven assuring a uniform heat profile. Preforms are heated neck down and positively held by an innovative "inside" meth od. A water cooled neck shield avoids overheating and neck deformation. A PC-based control with color touch-screen interface provides intuitive menus and multi-language capability. And internal modem enables remote diagnostics and monitoring.