l  General description
BFC Blowing-Filling-Capping Combiblock consists of blowing unit, filling unit, and capping unit. With the synthetic application of electricity, mechanics, and pneumatics, and synchro controlled by servo system, Combi is applicable for the integrated control of several equipment and the whole production process. It doesn't need empty bottle conveyor and rinsing part of the traditional filling machine, which saves a lot of room for the production plant, reduces water consumption from rinsing and energy consumption from fans used on empty bottle conveyor. It cuts a majority part of transit and guarantees the overall hygiene standard of the entire machine, which better helps end users increasing the overall production efficiency, lowering investment costs, saving energy consumption and maintenance costs.
l  Processing flowchart
l  Working process

n  Preform feed-in and unscrambling
 
It adopts the matured worldwide-standardized way of preform feed-in and unscrambling, in which preforms go through preform elevator and are transmitted to preform unscrambler. Inside the preform unscrambler, preforms are automatically sorted and delivered by two inclined revolving cylinders with same speed, and the remaining ones will be picked by star wheel and sent back to preform hopper. The whole process of preform unscrambling is fully automatic and has high efficiency without preform scratches.
 
n  Preform sterilization
 
After the preform unscrambling and before preforms getting into heating ovens, it is optional to choose ion air preform de-dusting device and UV preform sterilizing device for preform sterilization. The preform de-dusting device utilizes ionizer to generate positive and negative ions, which mix with clean compressed air, and are spouted into preforms. When scoured by high-speed ion air, dust adhered to the inner side of the preform due to static will be neutralized by positive and negative ion, and blew out of the preform. Dusts blown out will be drawn by high pressure air at the bottleneck and collected into dust bag. UV preform sterilizing device adopts ultraviolet generator with specified wavelength range. While it quickly and effectively sterilizes various kinds of microbes, it minimizes ozone output and side effects of ozone to the working environment and operator.
 
n  Heater
 
There are six infrared heating tubes adopting the best heating technic with bottleneck underneath. It reduces heat going upwards which damages bottleneck.
At the heating area, there are finely designed air flow technics, cooling water tunnel for bottle neck, and air cooling protection device, which provide thorough protection to bottle neck.
Heating tube temperature and preform temperature are transferred to PLC through oven temperature sensor and infrared thermodetector, and the actual temperature can be displayed and set at computer screen. By using PID function, each layer of heating tube power can be adjusted in order to achieve the best heating temperature curve for the preform.
The new designed modular heating oven adopted structural advantages from different overseas manufacturers, and installed specially designed extra-long short wave infrared heating tube for the optimization of spectral wavelength and reflectance coating. It increased reflection efficiency, and heating oven becomes more energy-saving, also more convenient for installation and maintenance.
Optimizing and adjusting air flow of the heating area increases heating stability. Moreover, the unique three-way air tunnel cools the preform body, bottle neck and preform holder with different amount of cooling air, which effectively protects bottle neck damages.
 
n  Blowing unit
 
Special manipulator delivers heated preforms to moulds along certain cam curve. After stretch pre-blow, the preform will be blown to bottles by connecting high pressure compressed air. Special manipulator sends the finished bottle out along certain cam curve.
n  Filling unit
The blow-made bottles are transported to filler via starwheel. After entering filler, the bottle is held by gripper of lifting cylinder and realizes up and down under effect of cam.
The filler adopts gravity filling way. Bottle mouth rises to open filling valves and start filling. While product rises and plugs up air return hole, the filling will be finished. After filling, bottle mouth moves down and leaves the filling valve.
 
n  Capping unit
 
Bottles enter capper via transition starwheel. The anti-rotation knife of capper blocks bottle neck to keep bottle vertical and prevent rotation. Capping heads keep revolution and do rotation. Under effect of cam, the action of gripping cap, sleeve cap, screwing cap and discharging cap to finish the whole capping course. The finished bottles are conveyed via bottle-out starwheel onto bottle-out conveyor, and then are sent out of the combiblock. The whole machine adopts console sealing windows, beautiful and decent.
 
l  Main Features for Blowing unit
1)         Special designed secondary blowing system monitors in time pressure curve of bottle stretch process in each cavity to provide accurate and timely parameters for technical adjustment, which is more convenient for operators to adjust technical parameters.
2)         Adopt manipulator transfer technology that cam mechanism has precise control. Catch and send preforms at high speed and the quality is reliable. Taking preform, sending preform, taking bottle and sending bottle match action of opening and closing mould to ensure that the movement process is exact and high efficient. Taking preform, sending preform, taking bottle and ranking bottle are finished automatically by manipulator, avoiding middle pollution.
3)         The cam mechanism controls exactly opening and closing of mould frame. Special mould locking and pressurizing system and simple and firm mould frame structure can control independently the blowing parameters of each cavity. Good malfunction diagnosis function and special blowing structure ensure the sealing reliability under various pressure. The blowing pressure can be adjusted.
4)         Stretch rod control exactly preform's axial stretch. The first blow and second blow control preform's vertical stretch. By precise adjustment of the first and second blow, the ideal distribution of bottle wall thickness can be achieved.
5)         Break conventional design and adopt structure of coaxial rotary bushing with small cubage and light weight. Adopt two deep groove ball bearings to fix two ends to make outside sleeve and core axes concentric, to ensure that the rotary sealing ring is not easy to be damaged. At the same time, increase one water back channel to make the leakage water in Gore circle flows back along pipe, ensuring that the water distributor won't have leakage.
6)         Heater adopts extend 6-section short wave infrared ray temperature control. Pre-heating zone and adjusting zone's lamps can be controlled and adjusted respectively by technical requirement. Equip real-time temperature monitoring system to ensure stable and accurate process.
7)         Cooling water channel and preform cooling system effectively protect the bottle moth and avoid high temperature occurring in outside wall of the preform. Our company's heating system can save energy 20% compare with other suppliers.
8)         Pneumatic line parts increase exhaust recycle system (according to customer's requirement) can save air 30%-50% to save energy consumption and reduce cost.
9)         Parameters of heating temperature and blowing time can be set according to different preform and bottle shapes. While changing bottle shape, user only needs to call the pre-set parameters.
10)      Adopt German lubrication system to do automatic lubrication for the machine so that the machine can get enough maintenance and the reduce worker's work.
11)      Mould installation is easy and simple and it can be changed in shortest time (within 2 hours). The Stop time of production is reduced which is helpful to improve production efficiency.
12)      Humanization design makes complicated industrial operation close to people's habits. High-resolution HMI and multi-languages option adapt to users from different area.
13)      Real-time monitoring function and various malfunction alarm hints and help, flexible and convenient parameter set can satisfy various technical requirements.
14)      Preform in the heating oven will be turned 180° through special designed cam, make the bottle mouth down in an optimum processing condition
15)      According to customer's requirement, the whole system can be maintained by Ethernet.
16)      The mould is made of special aluminum alloy. The surface adopts special hardening process to extend the mould life and lower the production cost.
17)      Preform infeed starwheel equipped with perform stuck inspection system. In case the preforms get stuck, the unqualified perform will be rejected automatically. After the unqualified preform get out of the equipment, this system will self-reset.
18)      For safety, the machine equips perfect and reliable security door system and alarm device to ensure maximum safety for operators
l  Main Features for Filling/capping Unit
n  Transition starwheel
The transition starwheel adopts steel starwheel and hanging bottle neck. The height of the machine doesn't need to be adjusted while changing different bottles.
Bottle-out starwheel adopts bottle bottom holding transport way. The bottle bottom holding board is a spiral curve. The height of the machine and bottle-out conveyor don't need to be adjusted.
The starwheel equips bottle blocking protection device.
 
n  Filler
The rotary tray is made of stainless steel.
Large plane teeth bearing runs smoothly and reliably.
Filling way is gravimetric.
Adopt annular tank and the liquid level is controlled by float balls.
Filling valves are made of ANSI 316L.
High speed and high precision filling valves with flow speed 200ml/s and level precision≤±3mm.
Each filling valve equips independent air back channel. In process of filling, the replaced air in the PET bottle won't go into the liquid tank.
The air back channel also achieves to control the filling volume in the bottle, correct filling level and realize control of high precision filling level.
The filling valve equips cleaning cup, which can be cleaned completely by CIP.
Adopt lift cylinder mechanism and bottle neck blocking mechanism. While changing different bottles, no need to replace any parts.
 
n  Capper
The capping effect is stable and reliable and defect rate is not more than 0.2%.
The cap falling chute equips the device for preventing reverse caps and taking out the reverse caps. And it equips one group of photoelectric sensors. When there is no cap in the chute, the machine will stop automatically, that avoids appearance of bottles without cap.
The capper equips bottle feeding detecting switch interlocking with cap locking cylinder between cap falling chute and cap dialing tray to control the discharge of caps. It ensures that cap feeding is stopped while no bottles and reduces cap loss.
High-efficiency centrifugal cap sorting way ensures less wear to caps.
Cap sorter equips cap shortage detecting mechanism to control start and stop of cap elevator.
 
n  Bottle-out conveyor
Driving motor adopts frequency control and keeps synchronization with the combibloc that avoid turnover of bottles effectively.
Bottle-out conveyor equips photoelectric switch. While bottles jam, the switch can control to reduce speed of the combibloc and stop it.
 
n  Machine base
The machine base is made of high quality carbon steel with surface treatment of painting and anti-rust. The surface is covered by stainless steel plate.
Adopt exclusive aperture stretch structure and work with O sealing ring to ensure zero leakage of the places as bearing seat and support axes.
 
n  Control system
The combibloc adopts PLC control to have the full journey control from bottle feeding to out of combibloc.
Production speed, shift capacity count, failure type, and failure points can be displayed in the screen and it can automatically collect information as failure occurring time and failure category.
 
l  Main configuration
The machine is made by aluminum alloy, carbon steel, stainless steel and alloy steel.
Bearings adopt domestic high quality bearings, imported bearings from Japan and Germany. The self-lubrication oil-free bearing adopts IGUS product.
High pressure air valves adopt product of NORGREN, EUGEN SEITZ, and SMC, etc.
High pressure exhaust mufflers adopt product of  American and German companies.
Pneumatic parts adopts product of FESTO, SMC, NORGREN, etc.
Touch screen system adopt product of Schneider, SIEMENS, etc.
PLC adopts product of MITSUBISHI, SIEMENS, SCHNEIDER, etc.
Photoelectric sensor adopt product of TURCK, OMRON, BANNER, etc.
Contactor adopts product of SIEMENS, Schneider, etc.
Connecting terminals adopt product of PHOENIX, ABB, etc.