Cartoners, or Cartoning machines are automatic packaging machines that serve for forming pre-formed box or cartonboard boxes, loading them with packages of materials, be bags of cereals, medicines, bottles of perfume, etc., and then to close the carton by completing the tuck-in or with adhesive glue. They are used in various industries, let be food, dairy, drinks and beverage, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, etc.
The rotary feeder is an essential section and transfer mechanism of the cartoning machine to pick carton box blanks and erect them into cartons with open ends.
The rotary feeder is driven through a complex mechanical transmission and consists of a main rotary plate or disc, which has several arms reaching out and installed with suction plates to catch carton blanks with vacuum.Then as the rotary process goes, blanks are placed onto the export transport chains or lug chains, where they are erected into cartons with open ends. The whole process is referred to as the box suction and opening mechanism.
This is the mechanical structure that all cartoning machines must be installed with and where mechanical engineers invest in the most of their creativity and ingenuity. The result is that the rotary feeder is just like the name badge of a cartoner, let be horizontal end-load cartoner or vertical cartoner.
In this article, we talk the mechanical design of the most common two types of rotary feeders on cartoners.
Rotary Feeder of Turning-Over Pattern
A rotary feeder of turning-over pattern is featured by the process of picking the banks from the carton hopper and erecting them on the export transport path, during which the cartons picked will be turned around.
For example, at the moment the arm with the suction plate touches the blanks in the hopper or carton magazine, the blank is secured and captured by a vacuum picked out from the magazine with a slight movement upwards, and then turned around before being placed on the lug chains.
The reason here is that the arms follow a rotary direction which is the reverse to that of the main rotary plate.As shown in the follow picture, while the main rotary plate follows a counter-clockwise movement as marked by the green arrow, the picking arms follow a trajectory of clockwise rotation, indicated by the yellow arrow.
The gear ratio here is the same as the numbers of picking arms on the rotary feeder. For example, in the case that there are three pick arms, the gear ration is 3:1, which means when the main rotary plate has completed one circle, each arm will have completed three times of that.
Rotary Feeder with Flat Placement Pattern
Rotary carton and box feeder with flat placement pattern is mounted similarly in structure compared with the former but with much complexity. Yet during the rotation, the carton blanks catch will always face outwards without being transposed.
The rotary plate disc is divided in trisection, and each section is with a subsidiary rotary disc. Each of the subsidiary rotary disc here is installed with rotary arm of shaft A, indicated by the red arrow in the picture, and each one of such shafts is then set with a secondary rotary shaft B marked here by the yellow arrow. Reaching from the shaft B is the picking arm just like that of turning-over feeder.The subsidiary rotary plate here follows a rotation reverse to that of the main disc, while the picking arm follows the same clockwise direction just like the main disc.
The flat-placement rotary feeders are more complex in terms of motion compared with the turning-over one, this can be revealed by the kinematic model of its mechanism.
Build an UCS, let the point O be the system’s origin which also stands for the center of the feeder’s rotary disc. Let L1 be the distance between the main rotary disc’s center point and the center point of subsidiary rotary plate, then l2 the distance between the subsidiary plate’s center to the packing arm, then l3 the same principle between the suction plate and the picking arm. Apply the rotation matrix we will then be able to build a Model of the feeder’s motion trajectory. [3]
Comparison between the Two Types of Feeders
Both flat-placement and turning-over carton feeders are in fact a superior form and styles of carton pickers that are most frequently used on advanced high-end cartoner machines with faster speed. The pros and cons of them are as follows:
- The turning-over style carton feeder is more affordable due to the relative simpler structure. However, the pattern of turning-over will probably cause the crush and corrosion between cartons caught by picking arms when the carton blank’s size is large. It is recommended to install such feeder on cartoners applied to small or medium sizes cartons.
- The flat-placement style carton feeder is superior in design and thus follows a more “state-of-the-art” mindset to deliver high-end carton suction and opening functions. The feature flat-placement avoids the corrosion between carton blanks secured by picking arms now that they will always face outwards. This kind of design makes it an ideal choice for cartons ranging from small to large sizes. Moreover, it is not only preferred on cartoner machines, packaging machinery manufacturers around the world, such as Kliklok Woodman, ADCO Manufacturing,Schuy + Folmeg Maschinenbau and ÉLITER Packaging Machinery, also install such feeder on their wrap-around sleever (sometimes referred to as sleeve wrap around cartoner), which is a variant of cartoning machine that serves to wrap trays, yogurt pots, and various containers with flat cardboard sleeves.
The “State-of-the-Art” with Cartoner’s Mechanical Design
Ever since the Italian packaging machine manufacturer CAM Automation (Tecnicam s.r.l.) invented their very first set of PR model cartonerback in 1956and which is still displayed in the Industrial Patrimony Museum of Bologna[4], the decades of development of cartoning machines have gradually led to a consensual methodology of cartoner machine’s mechanical design.
Regardless of such a fact, mechanical and packaging automation engineers are still constantly hitting new levels with “vanguardism” and “state-of-the-art” with the mechanical design of cartoning machines. And that is why cartoning machines have such a considerable wide range of designs, styles, and features when it comes to carton suction and opening mechanism.
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