Bag/pouch fill/seal (pre-made bags)

Servo auger filler/bagger

The Phaser Bagger from EaglePack (Oakland, CA) will be shown at the 2003 SCAA coffee exposition in Boston, held April 25-28.

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Controls & Machine Components: Page 265

Conveying & accumulation

National Manufacturing Week: Notes from the field

Special Projects Editor Dave Newcorn spotted many interesting new technologies, including machine vision, at National Manufacturing Week in early March. Here are some of them.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

Interphex 2003: pharma shifts to Gen3 packaging

A technology shift is underway among pharmaceutical manufacturers and contract packagers.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

Leeson Electric: Stainless steel motors

Leeson Electric (Grafton, WI) now offers a full line of premium stainless steel motors that meet the demanding sanitation requirements of the food and chemical processing industries.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

IMI Norgren, Inc: Pneumatic rotary actuators

From Norgren (Littleton, CO), a new range of pneumatic rotary actuators for packaging applications offer a consistently smooth, accurate, cushioned movement.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

Compumotor: Small servo drives

Compumotor (Rohnert Park, CA) has launched a series of small, high-performance brushless servo drives. The new SLVD (small, low-voltage, digital) drives measure just 5.56”x3.39” with a depth of 5.49”, and the family includes models that can deliver shaft powers to 620W.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

Beckhoff Automation: Industrial PC

The CX1000 Automation Control from Beckhoff USA (Minneapolis, MN) is a modular, DIN rail-mounted industrial PC with power and economy. Combines Microsoft® embedded operating systems (Windows CE.NET and Windows XP), and Beckhoff’s TwinCAT®CE PLC and motion control software in a low-cost, rugged hardware platform suitable for use in a wide range of machine tool and industrial control applications, handling up to 6 axes with the PLC program.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

Delta Tau Data Systems, Inc: Cost-effective motion control

New PMAC2A-PC/104 small-format motion controller from Delta Tau (Chatsworth, CA) delivers motion control for mid- to high-volume, multi-axis motion control applications.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

SURVEY IDENTIFIES TOP MACHINE ATTRIBUTES

A recent survey of PMMI member companies identified quick-changeover capabilities, flexibility, and fast speeds as the top three machine attributes most often requested by companies purchasing new packaging equipment.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

Q&A: Reducing controls headaches

We recently interviewed Bob Martell, an automation engineer based in Pharmacia Corp.’s main Kalamazoo, MI, facility, to find out how Plug-and-Pack™ guidelines from the OMAC (Open Modular Architecture Controls) Packaging Workgroup are saving Pharmacia and its machinery suppliers time and money.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

A servo-driven partnership

A donation of servo technology to a technical college yields students with motion control experience that the packaging field so desperately seeks.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

Temperature controller improves heat seals

A total of 12 temperature zones are consistently maintained to within ± 5°F thanks to a microprocessor-controlled module fully integrated into a DeviceNet fieldbus.

February 28, 2003

Controls & Machine Components

No more changeover (sidebar)

Software and servos make it possible

February 28, 2003