Just finished a new machine

[Scuba1]

In my day job I build and repair capping machines. Today I finished to date the most complex one and it was a bit of a bugger to build, but after weeks of making bits and trying things out it finally is up and running.

Starting from the left, where the pump heads are dropped into the bottle via a shute and a funnel that opens up at the bottom when the star wheel indexes to the next station. There the caps get straightened up with the alu insert in the clamp that screws the caps on. the next station checks that the caps are on straight and if the are, the overcaps are pressed on. Those overcaps are the most difficult bit as they are not symetrical and come every wich way down the shoot to the pick up point, where a optical senso detects which way round they are in the track and then turns the pick and place head in the right way to place them on the bottle.The last station check, that the overcaps are inplace and then it leaves the machine.

ATB

Michael

[saw]

Nice work 

[shipto]

oh man any vacancies going at your place? I love building machines and that looks like a brilliant job

[Scuba1]

As a matter of fact yes, they are looking for a fitter at the moment.

[Miner]

VERY impressive, Your obviously multi talented. There's a huge ammount of knowledge needed to build anything like that and expect it to work full time all the time. Metal types, Heat treating, bearing choices, Electronics, Cycle timing, Plus as you said non symetrical parts to handle. There would be a massive ammount I didn't mention and don't know anything about too. I'd guess your well informed on air and hydraulic systems as well as PLCs. I worked in a food processing plant when I was a teenager. There's far more to something automated like this than it first appears.

Pete

[Stilldrillin]

Michael.
That's a wonderful piece of machinery to watch! 

Almost 40yrs ago. I spent some 18 months, making many complicated parts for, "a machine to pick up lumps molten glass and make 'em into wine glasses". 

The parts, (24off of everything), left me and were never seen/ heard of again...... 

I would have loved to see that whirligig running........  Or not!

David D

[m_kilde]

Hi Michael

Great piece of machinery, just love this kind of contraptions

Thank you for the video

[Scuba1]

Thank you for the kind comments. I do like my job, as it is pretty versatile and they usually leave me to tinker at will. I have been playing with it today to get it up to speed its doing 46 bottles a minute now, but i think it can do better then that. At the moment i am tinkering with the accelleration and breaking curves of the indexing drive and the speed of the cylinders that push the bottles out and towards the conveyor. I guess in a week or so it is ready to ship and then I can start the next one. That one will fill and cap cream jars for the girls 

ATB

Michael

[raynerd]

Nice one Michael!  Maybe it is just my mind...but what exactly is the item it is capping???!???

[Scuba1]

Those are pump bottles for things like sun tan lotion and such stuff. The white things are just pucks made out of PTFE that have the profile of the bottle milled into them. That way you can use the same machine with minor changes in the settings for different shapes and sizes of bottles as all the machine knows hot to do is to put a cap in the middle of the white puck at a predetermined hight.

[AdeV]

 

I've often watched mechanisms like that on How It's Made/How It Works/etc. and marveled at the sheer brilliance involved in overcoming problems such as randomly shaped parts arriving upside down or the wrong way around.

Your device is easily up there with the best of them, it's mightily impressive. I'm curious, if one of the check stations fails a bottle (e.g. the one after the cap is screwed in), what happens? Does the bottle get kicked off the line?

[PeterE]

That is a really nice piece of machinery 

I can only guess how many hours have been spent in finding out the exact operating sequence. Brilliant!

When looking at your film and the result, it is always very fascinating to see all the lifts, tips, twists and whatever.

 

BR

/Peter

[fatal-exception]

Very cool! Building machines is so rewarding. Makes a 3 axis router build look like a walk in the park...

[Scuba1]

I've often watched mechanisms like that on How It's Made/How It Works/etc. and marveled at the sheer brilliance involved in overcoming problems such as randomly shaped parts arriving upside down or the wrong way around.

Your device is easily up there with the best of them, it's mightily impressive. I'm curious, if one of the check stations fails a bottle (e.g. the one after the cap is screwed in), what happens? Does the bottle get kicked off the line?

Yes when a cap is coss threaded or damaged in another way, the machine will push that bottle onto e reject conveyor. That conveyor is nt installed at the moment as we don't have enough room in the workshot right now, but the duble cylinder at the right hand side and the gate are there and working. I dave just for now deactivated that function because i don't want the thing to throw those bottles and pucks at my feet. 

[AndyB]

Fascinating

My mate builds similar sorts of machines.

The most amazing machine I ever saw was in Germany at a rope-making factory. It starts off with cotton-sized threads and twines that into thicker strands, which in turn are twined together to make thicker and thicker until it finally produced a cable 6 inches thick. I was trying to follow the bobbins on the revolving tables when I was dragged away

Evidently, watching the machine memerises the watcher until he falls into it

Andy

[AdeV]

Evidently, watching the machine memerises the watcher until he falls into it

Hence the expression "roped in"? 

[Scuba1]

Evidently, watching the machine memerises the watcher until he falls into it

Hence the expression "roped in"? 

Well with our machines ya just get capped