Federal Mfg.: Filler fits the bill for high-speed beverage jobs
The filler is a modular unit with automated features, using gravity level-filling valuves on a 120-inch pitch.
Range of beverages
“Gravity-style fillers are very well suited for any product that flows freely such as milk, juice, drinkable yogurt, energy drinks, and water,” Federal Mfg. sales manager Roderick Daly told FoodProductionDaily. “As our customers’ required production rates increase, so does the size of the filler.”
The machine’s features include a dedicated, closed-coupled, clean-in-place unit which controls the circulation of cleaning fluids. An acid metering system controls the concentration of cleaning fluids with a conductivity probe.
Sanitation standards
The filler adheres to 3-A Sanitary Standards design criteria. Daly told FPD told sanitation and ease of cleaning are a top priority with beverage operations.
“Cleaning is always a very important concern of our customers since the cleanliness of the filler has a direct relationship with the freshness of the product and the product code date that can be displayed,” he said.
Additionally, the filler’s integrated bottle rinser grips empty bottles by the neck and inverts them over a nozzle. An ionized air rinse takes the electrostatic charge out of the bottles to release any particles that may be inside.
Other features
The 70-valve machine is integrated with a 21-station Fowler/Zalkin pick-and-place capper. It also has a cap elevator sorter, cap chute, and air conveyors transfering 70-mm caps to the capper.
The semi-automated filler features an Allen-Bradley PLC-based control system with CompactLogix, and an Allen-Bradley 10-inch PanelView Plus interface.