The new rotary coater of greyssel sondermaschinen GmbH in Cologne can paste up to 30000 objects, such as straw, spoon or fork, on cups, cans or bottles every hour, and the pasting position is relatively fixed, which can not cover logo or product information. In order to ensure that safety is not threatened during high-speed production. When looking for an integrated safety system, geyssel chose the safety door system psenmlock, which integrates safety interlocking and safety protection locking functions in one equipment of pirci. When used in combination with the reliable configurable safety control system pnozmulti2 from pirci, geyssel formed a general safety solution. This solution is used in other applications, If applicable on packaging and test equipment.

How does the rotating equipment work

The sensor records the filled product without any contact when transporting the container to be loaded, whether it is a single line or multi line conveyor belt. The key element of this system is a rotating equipment with 16 stations grouped around a vertical drive shaft. In the packing area, a feeding worm ensures that the packaged products are evenly spaced, and a feeding star wheel transports them to the position around the spindle. The optical sensor detects the printed mark attached to the container, and the system controller causes the servo motor connected to 16 feeding stations to rotate the can, cup or bottle to the correct alignment position. A nozzle will glue the point to the container wall, while the application gear mechanism will paste the object to be pasted. Generally, the articles to be coated are provided by strip-shaped film connection through the transport wheel, and the blade separates the individual objects. In most cases, the designed adhesive uses hot melt adhesive, which can solidify in a very short time, so that objects will not fall down again. Now the convenient product ready for packaging continues to move along the axis, is rotated to the required position upstream of the unloading station, and is moved to the final packaging station through the unloading belt. Up to now, the whole production process is fully automated. According to the requirements of users, the packaging work can also be completed by an automated processing unit.

Double safety

When redesigning the coater, a more strengthened and flexible safety concept appeared. “In the previous generation of models, the traditional relay technology is used, and in the new generation of models, it will be replaced by powerful small controllers,” explained Steffen Bienert, an electrical designer of geyssel company. The specific hazards of the equipment come from the central transmission shaft and 16 rapidly rotating stations. Four doors and one feeding baffle must be protected to ensure that operators and personnel in nearby areas will not be dangerous. In our case, it is necessary to combine safety interlock and safety protection locking to ensure that the baffle or door will not be opened intentionally or inadvertently during operation.

Flexible combination of safety door monitoring and controller

“For the equipment with dangerous overtravel and rotating mechanism, safety protection locking must be adopted. At this time, it is very suitable to adopt a reliable psenmlock safety door system. For such equipment, if the operator needs to intervene due to failure or incorrect position of the tank, unless the emergency stop function is used in advance to make it in the state of safe stop, it is not allowed to stop in any case Under no circumstances can the door or baffle be opened. If a can weighing about 250g slips from a position in the rotating equipment and rushes to the door or baffle, the mechanical lock can resist such impact, “explained Ruben Maas, a sales engineer of pilci and a certified mechanical safety expert (CMSE).

For geyssel, the rugged and compact safety door system psenmlock is the only product of its kind with mechanical troubleshooting function, which is very important. “We considered various solutions, and an important reason why we finally chose psenmlock is that it integrates safety interlock and safety protection locking in a device. Convenient installation and fault diagnosis make the device diverse, which is an additional surprise for us,” Steffen Bienert continued. Geyssel is eager to integrate psenmlock into other applications, such as packaging, testing and special machines. LED indicators are on three sides of psenmlock, so that the diagnostic information can be easily read under any installation condition. A flexibly mounted actuator also provides compensation for high tolerance – in case the door needs to move down a few millimeters, and the safety protection locking function needs to be controlled by a dual channel controller. Geyssel found a small and configurable security controller PNOZmulti 2 suitable for their application: the size of the basic unit PNOZ mb0 is only 45mm, with 20 security inputs and 4 security semiconductor outputs, and can be flexibly expanded as needed. Its supporting software configuration tool PNOZmulti configurator is very simple to use, and the security functions required by the application unit can be integrated into the small controller PNOZmulti 2. More importantly, the hardware and software of PNOZmulti 2 have passed the certification, which can reliably monitor the security functions and adapt to the application at hand in a modular way.

“Pirci not only provides high-quality products, but also provides practical support on all issues related to automation and safety. For us, it is a problem solver. We use the compact safety door system psenmlock as the standard configuration where safe mechanical door locking is required,” Steffen Bienert stressed. “As a small company, we rely on innovative partners. Our cooperation with pirci is always on the basis of equality. Therefore, when we encounter automation and security problems, we rely on the expertise from pirci,” Steffen Bienert concluded.