Robotic product orientation and feeding from Theegarten

Theegarten-Pactec is well known for their incredibly high speed candy wrapping systems. But how to feed a shaped chocolate that must be oriented into the wrapper at speeds of 300 to 400 pieces per minute?

This content was written and submitted by the supplier. It has only been modified to comply with this publication’s space and style.

For Managing Director Egbert Röhm, the answer was robotics. At interpack, the company demonstrated a robotic orientation system utilizing an ELAU P3 robot arm. ELAU allowed Theegarten-Pactec to embed their own robotic solution as part of their machine instead of an add-on third party robot with a separate, proprietary 'black box' controller.

Because there is only one ELAU automation controller to handle the machine and the robot, it's a much faster solution. Infeeding is synchronized within the controller with wrapping by a matter of microseconds. Two separate controllers – with the addition of a conventional ‘black box' robot control -- would have resulted in 100 to 150 millisecond communication rates.

The advanced robot is part of a complete packaging system offering integrated lines from the processing equipment to downstream packaging units, demonstrated by this system, which featured a gondola buffer system as well as transport systems.

www.theegarten-pactec.de

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