Packaging

Ever wondered how, when walking in a supermarket, all the bottle labels are facing the same way looking almost identical in terms of positioning and orientation? This is a result of today's high speed labelling machines ensuring labels are adhered correctly on the target product with as little deviation as possible. With bottle or cylindrical vessel labelling as it’s also known, everything is done at a very high speed with immense accuracy.

The label has to be fed at a constant rate to prevent stretching, warping, and even tearing of the label film sheet to ensure that all products have a label correctly placed. Labels come in a host of sizes and can be placed in a number of ways, be it cold glue, hot glue, shrinkwrap or general wrap around types. When designing a labelling machine the control architecture has to support all these variances with as little disruption to productivity as possible.

Achieving these requirements is second nature for Mitsubishi Electric's iQ Platform. Together with Q motions high speed registration functionality, labels are guaranteed to be placed accurately with little distortion. By adding the Q CPU logic controller, the rotary drum, feed roller brake and bottle sensors can be controlled easily and at high speed with simple ladder logic programming.

With the GOT2000’s high resolution touch screen, monitoring, debugging and label parameter profile changes can be displayed and controlled with instant connection via the high speed Q bus connection. Using the MR-J4 servo amplifier series with SSCNET III for high speed servo control, the film winding reel and tension roller can be accurately controlled to ensure continuous label winding being presented to the bottle.

From intermittent speed labelling applications, where product conveyor belts are used, to the more complex applications requiring interpolation and servo motor monitoring a wide selection of FX products is readily available for easy system integration. With the FX3U-20SSC-H controller, synchronous control of two axes over the SSCNET III motion network adds powerful benefits to labelling applications where timing is critical for label precision and placement.