Merging and Feeding Lanes of Sealed Food Trays - System Spotlight


This system was designed for one of our customers that wanted transport, accumulate, and combine sealed trays of food at a rate of 56 products per minute in each of the five lanes. A customer supplied robot places the trays wide edge leading in a pattern of five products wide and eight products long. They are conveyed to the first section of the system where they are accumulated and wait for single rowing. Product stops and brakes are alternately retracted to release groups of trays into the combining area. The groups of trays enter a swinging combiner with flexible guides into a single lane. Once products are in a single lane, they are conveyed to a customer supplied drying station. When released from the drying station, a pattern sensor will detect any products rotated to short edge leading and reject them from the conveyor using a servo divert device.

Welcome to System Spotlight, giving you an in-depth look at Shuttleworth’s more advanced product handling systems and conveyor applications. In this video, we will showcase a solution for one of our customers that wanted to transport, accumulate, and combine sealed trays of food at a rate of 56 products per minute in each of the five lanes.

A customer-supplied robot places the trays wide edge leading in a pattern of five products wide and eight products long. They are conveyed to the first section of the system where they are accumulated and wait for single rowing. Product stops and brakes are alternately retracted to release groups of trays into the combining area.

The groups of trays enter a swinging combiner with flexible guides into a single lane. Once products are in a single lane, they are conveyed to a customer-supplied drying station. When released from the drying station, a sensor pattern will detect any products rotated to short edge leading and reject them from the conveyor using a servo divert device.

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