A high friction belt is useful when moving potentially slippery product. But in some cases, this provides a challenge when removing the product from the belt. This issue arose recently with a company transporting flat cards on a conveyor. The indexing conveyor needed to stop in front of worker stations so that the cards could… Read more »
Tag: Smart Solutions
New Spiral Chutes from Dorner Provide a Gentle, Economical Way to Move Product Down to a Lower Level
Gravity has never been more useful! The new Spiral Chutes from Dorner are an economical way to gently move product down to a lower level…with gravity doing all the work. As product enters the Spiral Chute, gravity takes over to safely slide packages down to the lower level. Spiral Chutes’ patent-pending stair step design ensures products won’t get stuck… Read more »
Four Uses for a Retracting Tail Conveyor
The capability to retract a conveyor, either manually or pneumatically, can improve system flexibility. The basic design of a retracting tail is a conveyor frame that retracts or extends, typically on slides or rails. This function can happen infrequently with low accuracy or it can reoccur every few seconds with precision. Dorner has options available… Read more »
Transfer Metal Product with Magnetic Conveyors
There are multiple options when looking to transfer product between conveyors such as powered or roller transfers, but this recent application used a more unique option. This 2200 Series SmartFlex conveyor system features magnetic transfers both on and off the conveyor. The transfers were designed using 2200 Series magnetic conveyors that pick up the metal product off of an… Read more »
Move Product Around Machinery with a Reverse LPZ Conveyor
A traditional LPZ conveyor is ideal for elevation changes in some facilities, but other times its footprint is too large for what the space allows. A recent customer faced this problem when they needed to move product between conveyors, but the area wouldn’t work for a regular Z-frame conveyor due to a machine being in… Read more »
Helical Conveyor Solution
Dorner’s 2200 Series SmartFlex line capabilities, such as the SmartFlex Twist, Alpine, and Helical are designed to give customers added flexibility. The SmartFlex Helix allows for elevation changes as part of the conveyor system, raising or lowering products in a small foot print. The foot print for the elevation section can be as small a 10’ x 10’ which is ideal… Read more »
Powered Side Guide Highlighted on Dorner’s SmartFlex Conveyor with FlexMove Technology
Dorner recently worked with a customer who needed to convey small plastic bottles. The solution required a number of different transfers from conveyors and other machinery. While there are many different ways to handle bottle transfers from one conveyor to the next, often times the solution relies on product back-pressure to lessen the chance of… Read more »
Flat Pouch Labeler
This video shows a conveyor created by Dorner’s Engineered Solutions Group for Southern California Packaging Equipment. It is a modified 2200 Series conveyor where the conveyor frame is wider than the belt. This allowed Southern California Packaging Equipment to mill slots through the frame on both sides to allow a pneumatic gate to raise and stop the product.
SmartFlex Wedge Elevator Video
Dorner’s SmartFlex Wedge Elevators are designed to move products securely between the production floor and other elevations. The products are wedged between opposing conveyors lined vertically or horizontally. Wedge elevators are ideal for environments requiring compact footprints, transitions between travel orientations, de-pucking operations and creating passageways on the production floor. The wedge elevators rapid… Read more »
Dorner Solves Customer’s Wide Conveyor Application with Belted Conveyor Design
Dorner recently worked with a customer who required a 101” wide conveyor. The conveyor needed to accept three side-by-side stacks of light-weight product that were up to 30” wide apiece. The challenge was, Dorner’s widest standard offering is the 52” wide belt on the AquaGard 7360 platform. The application did not require stainless steel construction, so… Read more »
Vertical Precision Move Conveyor for Elevation Changes in Manufacturing Line
Manufacturing lines aren’t always on a single level. For this paper company, the product accumulator was 20 feet above the paper cutter on the ground level. To transport the paper rolls between machines, Dorner created an elevator to move the product vertically. The rolls of paper travel from the paper cutter down a belted 2200… Read more »
Align Random Product with a Chicane Conveyor
In certain production processes, the product is random, misaligned or spread out. This can occur either on purpose or as a result of the process. For example, in an oven, the product should be spread out to allow for even baking. However, further down the line, the product needs to be reoriented or placed in… Read more »
Recirculating Conveyor for Small Parts – Video
In a recent application, a customer was looking to move small parts into a single file line so that a robot could pick the parts up one at a time and move them to the next machine. The customer will manually dump the parts onto this recirculating conveyor, a system using two conveyors moving in… Read more »
Multiple Belts for Box Stability in Packaging Line
When packaging product into boxes, it’s often important to make sure the box is in the exact right position, especially when a robot is doing the packing. While there are a variety of options for positioning a box, the system shown here allows for various sizes of box to run on the same system while… Read more »
Singulating Chocolates on a Chicaning Conveyor
The purpose of chicaning conveyor systems is to orient products into a single file line. In this application, we are taking chocolates from a multi-row array and singulating them for the downstream packaging equipment. This system consists of 6 conveyors and a sawtooth piece of UHMW nicknamed the “turbulator”. The four main line conveyors are… Read more »
Transfer between Lines with Pop-up Conveyors
We’ve shown pop-up transfer tables in the past, like this one that is changing the orientation of a block of food. In the application described below, the pop-up transfer is used to move product between two packaging lines. The conveyor shown in this video is moving blocks of cheese. Dorner provided two lines of conveyors… Read more »
Pack Expo Booth Preview – Part Four
Read parts one (HERE), two (HERE) and three (HERE). PACK EXPO 2015 is only one week away! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas next week. We are premiering two brand new conveyors at the show! Take a first look at them here. AquaPruf Vertical Belt Technology … Read more »
Controlling Product Flow – Sanitary Pusher
There are many options for controlling product flow on your packaging or processing line. Options such as diverters & gates, lane guiding, and pushers all provide different advantages for customers. When you need to move product off the conveyor in a perpendicular flow, a pusher may be your best option. Pushers can also be useful… Read more »
90 Degree Transfer with Product Stager
For this application, the customer needed to complete a 90-degree transfer without having the product skew. The packages are coming out of a product sealer in batches of three. They are set at a particular width spacing which we matched with specific lane guides on the first conveyor in the system. The product travels down… Read more »
Improve Product Transfers without Sacrificing Sanitation
Food processing companies often need to transfer product from one machine to the next. But when a company needs a large sanitary conveyor that can still transfer small items, an innovative solution is needed. This particular transfer unit features small ½” transfers on and off of the conveyor. The facility that this conveyor was… Read more »
Tray Filling Conveyor with Retractable Tail
Recently, we had a customer looking to improve the efficiency of their food production line. The product was coming down a conveyor and needed to be placed onto trays which would then go in an oven for baking. The company’s current set-up used two employees to grab the products off of the conveyor and… Read more »
See our newest products at Automate 2015!
“Held once every two years, Automate is the largest solutions-based showcase of automation technologies in North America demonstrating the full spectrum of automation technologies and solutions within the robotics industry.” – Automate Website This year, Automate 2015 will be held from March 23-26 at the McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. Dorner will be exhibiting for… Read more »
Change Orientation with a Pop-up Transfer
A 90-degree pop-up transfer uses multiple conveyors moving perpendicularly to each other, changing a product’s direction. The transfer shown above was built to handle multiple sizes of reams of paper. This space-saving design changes both the orientation and elevation of the product as it moves down the line. The lifting of the pop-up transfer accommodates… Read more »
Use a Conveyor to Spread Product, Maximize Quality – Video
In many applications involving cooling or heating, product spacing is key to uniform quality. And often, the equipment producing the product is narrower or wider than the cooling or heating equipment. This can create a dilemma. In this application, the product was going into… Read more »