CONTROL & AUTOMATION
CONTINUOUS TRANSPORT
MK PROFILES
INTERLINKING FOR CANISTER
TRANSPORT WITH A BRIDGE
When a customer came to mk saying
that they needed to achieve continuous
transport without complicated stopping
and turning for their production line, mk
said no problem!
Two machining stations in a plastic
canister production process needed to be
interlinked and the solution had to cope
with inconvenient spatial constraints: Empty
canisters needed to be conveyed along a
curve and past another machine so that
they could be brought back to the original
feed height at the discharge point, where
they were allowed to accumulate.
The canisters were transported standing
and transverse to the conveying direction,
and they needed to have the same
alignment at the end of the interlink
that they had when they entered. Each
canister weighs about two kilogrammes.
The interlink needed to run reliably in a
two-shift operation. Additional spatial
constraints regarding the length and height
of the interlink had to also be observed.
mk devised a transport system built from
the mk modular construction kit. A KMF-P
2040 curved modular belt conveyor was
used to feed the products in. This allowed
the canisters to be transported in the
correct position without complicated
stopping and turning. Two ZRF-P 2040
timing belt conveyors with a timing belt
equipped with longitudinal grooves serve
as the incline. They were positioned at an
upward incline of about 30°.
The canisters travel between the two lines.
The high friction of the timing belt and
gentle clamping between the lines ensure
that the canisters are transported upwards.
A closed-loop controller is used to precisely
synchronise the two timing belt conveyor
lines so that there is no offset. A GUF-P
2000 belt conveyor serves as the bridge,
while two additional timing belt conveyors
transport the canisters downwards again.
An additional belt conveyor with an end
stop is used as the discharge and removal
station. The entire frame is built using the
mk profile construction kit.
www.mkprofiles.co.uk
90
PECM Issue 38