PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2017

INSPECTION 23 PET planet Insider Vol. 18 No. 03/17 www.petpla.net or, if the installation space is limited for example due to a circular transfer table, the system design allows for a one-sided measurement with a single stack of sensors. The system is offered as “active” including real-time thickness monitor- ing and the automatic rejection of too thin/thick bottles or “passive” which provides real-time thickness monitor- ing and real-time automatic operator alarms for bad bottles by a light tower or a horn. The system is all-inclusive and mounted on a pedestal-style stand that can be equipped with casters which allows system mobility between production lines. A mobile system offers flexibility and cost savings to manufacturers that have several pro- duction lines. System operation The graphic user interface is oper- ated via a touch panel monitor and the application software is recipe-based. Each bottle design has its own recipe that includes thickness specifica- tions for each measurement location, cavity count, bottle image, etc. Sensor height level, distance and angle values in the recipe enable a quick alignment before the production run. While the system is running, thick- ness results from each sensor are plotted in real-time on its own chart that includes warning and specifica- tion limits. This makes it easy for an operator to instantly detect trends and other unusual process behaviour. The software reports mean thickness, standard deviation and process capa- bility for each sensor. Bottles’ vertical thickness profile is displayed, too. The system PC can be connected to a LAN that allows remote access to the measurement results. Thickness data is available for closed-loop machine control. Filled bottles, preforms, glass The FocalSpec system’s single- sided measurement method enables the system to be used also on filled plastic bottles, monolayer and multi- layer preforms, and empty and filled glass bottles. www.focalspec.com High speed, high accuracy Since modern high-capacity blow moulders have a very high output, designing the MPC 100 was a chal- lenge. The sensor samples wall thickness at 10kHz (10,000 measure- ments per second) and the thickness resolution is 50 nanometres (2 micro inches). Since the sensor uses a pair of IR beams, it applies trigonometry to automatically correct thickness error that would otherwise affect readings from a non-perpendicular wall or tilted bottle. Modular design The FocalSpec system can be configured according to the manufac- turer’s specific needs. The number of sensors on each side of the bottle flow can be selected based on the bottle size, design, and the number of desired measurement locations. Non- symmetric designs may require an uneven number of sensors. If meas- urement of just one wall is enough  Throughput: up to 120,000bph  Materials: transparent and trans- lucent PET, PP, PC, HDPE  Colours: clear, green, amber, blue, red, etc.  Thickness range: 0.05 – 5.00mm (0.002 – 0.197”) nominal FocalSpec MCP 100 sensor PROCESS PILOT ® makes producing a better PET bottle as easy as 2 3 1 MEASURE CONTROL OPTIMIZE every bottle for changes in material distribution process variation, inside the blowmolder material utilization and orientation to achieve maximum bottle performance CONTACT US TODAY TO LEARN MORE! AGRINTL.COM | +1.724.482.2163 | SALES@AGRINTL.COM