Energy-saving cap feeding system
Gassner, Hall B4 – Booth 123
Gassner, a specialist company for closure feeding systems, is presenting the FlexiLiner, a flexible conveyor for feeding already oriented bottle caps, closures or cans. With this solution, each cap is gripped gently only once, as it goes onto the conveyor line (SoftGrip). It then remains in the same position throughout the whole conveying process without any relative movement to the conveyor, without rubbing against the guides and without the risk of getting tangled or jammed. Routing can be handled uninterrupted on one machine. The continuous conveyor line can run vertically, horizontally, diagonally, upwards, downwards, to the left and/or to the right in any order. This means that the conveyor line can be flexible in adapting to the customer’s requirements and to the situation in the filling plant. Sensitive and abrasion-producing transitions and connecting channels are no longer needed and can be discarded altogether. All this enhances operational safety and avoids faulty closures on the capping machine. Reduced downtime increases the system’s efficiency and the costs incurred by preform rejects due to faults in the closures are now a thing of the past, says the company.
Hygiene is improved by the absence of abrasion and angel hair with the FlexiLiner and there is no disruptive air turbulence. The closures do not collide with one another, nor is there any other type of interference or frictional forces present during the smooth transport. This means that the FlexiLiner can continue to move caps that have already been quality-tested in routing without the risk of them being crushed. As the SoftGrip elements automatically adjust to different diameters, it is possible to process caps for a range of spouts, e.g. closures for 28 mm and 38 mm neck finishes. Likewise, a variety of cap sizes can be transported, e.g. flat caps and sports closures. Height and diameters can also vary. For example, 28 mm flat caps can be combined with 38 mm sports closures without any conversion effort.
