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Pack Air Inc. recently manufactured a dual-laned forward manipulation Starwheel device to be placed at an End-of-Line case packing process. Forward Rotation Starwheels manipulate products 90 degrees, upending or laying them down for various automated packaging tasks. Many different-sized wheels can be built to accommodate the wide variety of products such as tissue boxes, bundled products, and more. So, let’s take a look at this unique product together.
Each lane on this Starwheel is independently driven, allowing one side to run if the opposite side is waiting for product. Should there be a need for no forward manipulation, the stars can retract downward, allowing any products to pass through unchanged. Safety additions were also added around the conveyor, star, and retractable arm in the form of an enclosed structure with interlocked doors for operator access.
To prevent the star wheels from continuously starting and stopping while waiting on product, a minimum backlog of product is built up prior to the stars. Sensors on the Starwheel’s infeed tell the system if there’s enough or not enough accumulated tissue boxes to run the device, while a pair of pneumatic clamps help regulate backpressure.
Flat tissue cartons ready to be upended for case packing are met with a specially designed dual 11-point Starwheel that handles 500 boxes per minute. That’s 250 cartons each side! When rotated, tissue cartons are gently placed back down on the outfeed conveyor surface by carefully matching the stars rotational speed with the discharge conveyor speed. Starwheel product upenders are an excellent way to gently upend products for different case packing End-of-Line processes.
