HEVS - Electronic volumetric filling system
The thirty-year experience of Enoberg (company part of the SMI Group) in the manufacturing of fillers and the growing market demand in terms of hygiene, reliability, simplicity of machine maintenance and use have led the company to manufacture the new HEVS range (Hyper-clean Electronic Volumetric filling systems for Sparkling products).
The volumetric electronic filling system is based on the use of a flow meter for each filling valve. The flow meter detects the flow of the product that fills each bottle; once the correct volume is reached, the flow meter controls the closing of the filling valve.
The products that can be worked by HEVS fillers are:
1Empty bottles transfer
After being manufactured by the stretch-blow moulding machine, empty bottles are conveyed from the blower to the filler by "neck-handling" direct transfer by menas of adjoining star wheels. The star-wheel at the blowmoulder outlet is equipped with grippers electronically synchronised with the brackets of the starwheel at the filler inlet.
2 Filling
Once the filling station is reached, a gripper, directly connected with the filling valve, grabs the bottle by the neck and brings it into contact with the filling valve, in order to allow the filling operation. The product to be filled is positioned in a manifold resistant to high pressure, placed inside the filling carousel.
In the bottle, in contact with the filling valve, CO2 is injected in order to take it to the right pressure and have a filling with no froth. The electronic volumetric filling process is carried out through flow meters, placed upstream of each filling valve. During the filling process, the flow meter detects the amount of product that goes through the valve. The measurement is based on pulses, that are compared to the ones set for the format in use. While the product enters the bottle, the CO2 goes out through the dedicated channel.
When the set value is reached, the closure sign is sent to the filling valve. At this point the decompression/sniff phase starts: a specific channel conveys the pressure left in the bottle to a dedicated manifold that discharges outside the filling section.
At this stage the bottle is transferred to the capper.
3Capping
A shaped star wheel allows to center the bottle under its capping station. The cap coming from the feeding system is picked by a transfer star wheel called “pick and place”. The capping head picks the cap from the star wheels and applies it to the bottle. According to the cap to be applied (plastic screw cap or pressure cap), the capping system can operate by rotation or pressure.
The filled and capped bottle is transferred to the outfeed conveyor.
4Outfeed conveyor
The filled and capped bottles are transferred to a chain conveyor that conveys the bottles outside the machine. This conveyor is equipped with an automatic height adjusting system, that allows to adjust the bottle base according to the bottle height.
