In response to a customer request, Scandia recently designed and built its first minimally mechanical, full-servo overwrapping machine. The overwrapper uses eight servo motors to apply and heat seal film wrap over cartons of product containing just about anything from baby food to batteries.
“Before this, our machines were mechanically controlled,” says Art Goldberg, director of engineering at Scandia. “Timing was driven by a main shaft connected to chains and other mechanical components.”
In the new servo-based system, mechanical synchronization is replaced by a multi-axis servo controller called the MC224 from Trio Motion Technology (www.triomotion.com). A PLC from Rockwell (www.rockwellautomation.com) sends an output to the Trio controller, which is programmed to synchronize all eight axes of motion. These include
• main rotary indexer
