Interlinking for Canister Transport with a Bridge

When a customer came to mk saying that they needed to achieve continuous transport without complicated stopping and turning for their production line, mk said no problem! Two machining stations in a plastic canister production process needed to be interlinked and the solution had to cope with inconvenient spatial constraints: Empty canisters needed to be conveyed along a curve and past another machine so that they could be brought back to the original feed height at the discharge point, where they were allowed to accumulate. The canisters were transported standing and transverse to the conveying direction, and they needed to have the same alignment at the end of the interlink that they had when they entered. Each canister weighs about two kilogrammes. The interlink needed to run reliably in a two-shift operation. Additional spatial constraints regarding the length and height of the interlink had to also be observed. mk devised a transport system built from the mk modular construction kit. A KMF-P 2040 curved modular belt conveyor was used to feed the products in. This allowed the canisters to be transported in the correct position without complicated stopping and turning. Two ZRF-P 2040 timing belt conveyors with a timing belt equipped with longitudinal grooves serve as the incline. They were positioned at an upward incline of about 30°. The canisters travel between the two lines. The high friction of the timing belt and gentle clamping between the lines ensure that the canisters are transported upwards. A closed-loop controller is used to precisely synchronise the two timing belt conveyor lines so that there is no offset. A GUF-P 2000 belt conveyor serves as the bridge, while two additional timing belt conveyors transport the canisters downwards again. An additional belt conveyor with an end stop is used as the discharge and removal station. The entire frame is built using the mk profile construction kit.