A checkweigher is an automatic or manual machine for checking the weight of packaged commodities. It is normally found at the offgoing end of a production process and is used to ensure that the weight of a pack of the commodity is within specified limits. Any packs that are outside the tolerance are taken out of line automatically.
An automatic checkweigher incorporates a series of conveyor belts. These checkweighers are known also as belt weighers, in-motion scales, conveyor scales, dynamic scales, and in-line scales. In filler applications, they are known as check scales. Typically, there are three belts or chain beds:
An infeed belt that may change the speed of the package and to bring it up or down to a speed required for weighing. The infeed is also sometimes used as an indexer, which sets the gap between products to an optimal distance for weighing. It sometimes has special belts or chains to position the product for weighing.
A weigh belt. This is typically mounted on a weight transducer which can typically be a strain-gauge load cell or a servo-balance (also known as a force-balance), or sometimes known as a split-beam. Some older machines may pause the weigh bed belt before taking the weight measurement. This may limit line speed and throughput.
A reject belt that provides a method of removing an out-of-tolerance package from the conveyor line. The reject can vary by application. Some require an air-amplifier to blow small products off the belt, but heavier applications require a linear or radial actuator. Some fragile products are rejected by "dropping" the bed so that the product can slide gently into a bin or other conveyor.
Keywords
gap
bin
packs
chains
series
limits
indexer
chainbeds
linespeed
weighbelt
commodity
throughput
rejectbelt
infeedbelt
commodities
offgoingend
checkscales
servobalance
weighbedbelt
forcebalance
specialbelts
beltweighers
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conveyorline
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oldermachines
smallproducts
checkweighers
dynamicscales
manualmachine
conveyorscales
inmotionscales
radialactuator
fragileproducts
optimaldistance
weighttransducer
weightmeasurement
productionprocess
fillerapplications
heavierapplications
straingaugeloadcell
outoftolerancepackage
