Space constraints at both the bottle infeed and discharge stations of the Aquatyzer machine made it essential that the same pneumatic cylinder be capable of handling both 18” tall 3-gal and 24” tall 5-gal containers. Aquatyzer met this challenge by incorporating a Festo DNC cylinder with a 63-mm bore, 280-mm stroke, and integral clamping unit. But this is a cylinder that’s undergone some customizing.
“On a conventional pneumatic cylinder, the only piston positions you get are fully extended or fully retracted,” says Aquatyzer vice president David Tye. “Such a cylinder would not be capable of clamping two different bottle heights. So this cylinder has an encoder bolted on that records the precise position of the piston rod inside the cylinder. The encoder sends signals to and receives them from a small Festo electronic device. At this device, an operator enters in whichever bottle size needs to be handled. Consequently, the cylinder rod goes to whatever position has been entered. We fully extend the cylinder piston for the larger bottle, but we extend it only part way for the smaller bottle. Without the encoder, piston rod positioning information would not be possible.”
See the story that goes with this sidebar: Bottler takes a networked approach
