Are you a food or household product startup? Are you looking to invest in a liquid filling machine? Choosing the right automatic liquid filling machine can bring many benefits to your business such as increased productivity, higher levels of precision and less opportunity for human filling errors, greater consistency of fill, less costly product wastage, improved speeds and more. However, if you’re unfamiliar with this process, it can be a very challenging one. If you get the wrong fill machinery for your business, you won’t only waste the resources used to acquire the equipment, you will be affecting your current and future productions.
For this reason, we decided to create this guide to help you clear up any doubts you might have to invest in the right bottling equipment for your business.
Check the guide below. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to write to us at sales@maxpackmachinery.com or give us a call at +1 (305) 424-1661.
First thing is first, what type of product are you filling?
There are many types of liquids, food and non food liquids. Additionally, there are many features for each different type of product according to food standards and chemical standards. With that, we must identify the type of liquids we are going to use in the machine along with its viscosity. Also, we need to know if the product is foamy, liquid or pasty; if pasty, what is the viscosity level and how well does it flow?
Does the product have unique characteristics?
It is very important for the manufacturer to be aware of any unique characteristics the product may have. Below are some examples.
If it’s a food product, how does the product need to be filled? At what temperature? Does the product have any type of particles, if so, what are the particle sizes and texture?
If it’s a chemical product, what type of chemical are we dealing with? What is the PH of the product?
Can the products be filled by gravity or by a volumetric piston cylinder? If you’re not sure about this last one, read the next section carefully.
Gravity filling or Volumetric Piston Cylinder
This is a very important question to ask yourself as a product manufacturer, and it’s important to understand the differences between both technologies because you might end up choosing the filling machine that does not accommodate best for your operation.
Gravity filling:
If you have liquids with very low viscosity, food or chemical, foaming or non-foaming, you can work with a machine that has a time gravity machine feature such as the Maxpack MCSP model, which basically fills the liquid by gravity with a timing valve controlled by a touch screen program. With this feature you can fill volumes from 50 ml up to 10.000 ml
Piston volumetric cylinder filling:
If you are looking to fill liquids with a very low viscosity including foaming and non foaming food or chemicals as well as high viscosity pasty liquids we recommend for you to go with a piston volumetric cylinder filling machine like the Maxpack MCSP servo volumetric piston filling machine.
This is the ideal machine to run multiple types of products with different viscosity levels including pasty liquids.
If you order the Maxpack MCSP model, the filling volumes are set up automatically on the touch screen but the minimum and maximum volumes in this type of machine are set up by the size of the piston cylinder. When you order the machine a filling range is set according to your final bottle volumes and target speed.
Cylinder size range: (Ranges for one filling cycle)
- 30-500ml
- 50-1.000ml
- 250-2.500ml
- 500-3.000ml
- 1.000-5.000ml
Some key points from the Maxpack MCSP servo piston filler machine:
- Volume ranges are set according to the cylinder size range
- The machine allows for multiple cycles. So, for example, if you’re looking to reach a range of 50-1.000 ml you can still do 4.000 ml with 4 filling cycles of 1.000 ml each
Find out if the machine is capable of filling different types of products and volumes.
It’s very important to know exactly what volumes you need to fill and the ones you might need to run in the future in order to choose the correct feature/s that will allow you to grow your operation with the chosen machine and the type of filling selected.
Do you have different bottle sizes?
If you run an operation where you manage different bottle sizes you might need to consider looking for a machine capable of adjusting to different bottle sizes. For example, the Maxpack MCSP model is a linear type of filling machine capable of being adjusted without any change-parts tooling. This gives you time-saving and cost-saving advantages, as well as flexibility to grow with different types of bottle formats.
What type of container or bottle are you using?
The three most commonly used materials for bottles are PET Plastic, Glass and Aluminum. Only recently a new family of materials has been growing given new market trends, that is the biodegradable material category.
The Maxpack MCSP filling machine can run any type of container that fits on the machine size range.
What shape does the container have?
The shape of your container can affect the engineering of your equipment so you must be aware if your container has a regular shape or an irregular one.
The Maxpack MCSP filling machine can run different types of container shapes including round, flat, or irregular shapes. The bottle’s neck must always be in the center position otherwise each bottle would need to be oriented to the same position before entering the filling machine.
Keep in mind that the final filling speed will depend on different factors.
The estimated average range of speed should usually only serve as a guide. The final speed will be determined by various factors such as the final volume capacity, the quality of packaging material, size and bottle shape, physical product characteristics, product and bottle feeding, operator skills, ambient filling conditions, among others.
There are also some products or formats that tend to slow down a filling line such as foamy liquids or low fluidity products, as well as large fills and difficult to fill products.
Another factor that tends to slow down filling speeds is the product-size to bottle-size ratio. There should be enough space available in the bottle to allow products to be filled by gravity.
The weighing range accuracy will also depend on the product effect. The product effect refers to the specific characteristics that make up each product and that may affect and disturb the dosification and weighing process.
Be mindful that the product processing may require adjustments to improve packaging process, reach target metrics and increase efficiency.
Also, you have to take into account that the mechanical speed of the machine may not be the same as the production speed you are trying to achieve.
Lastly, the quantity of nozzles will also affect speed and we definitely recommend you select and confirm the type and quantity of these before ordering the machine. For instance, at Maxpack we offer standard and premium nozzles.
You need to consider all these factors mentioned above when ordering your filling machine because the final output will depend on all of them.
Another important aspect to consider is the ease of cleaning and maintenance of the equipment.
If filling equipment isn’t cleaning or maintenance friendly, things can get pretty messy and the equipment can deteriorate faster.
At Maxpack, we understand the importance of this and therefore made equipment accessibility a detrimental part of our design and engineering. The Maxpack MCSP filling models come with a washing function and our nozzles are made as standard with clamps for easy assembly. We can also incorporate features such as a CIP inlet to the filling tanks.
When it comes to cleaning you need to keep in mind your products unique characteristics as well as your company’s cleaning standards. Both of these aspects may demand for a longer cleaning time and to tackle this we can add an extra set of tooling to change nozzles to save time.
Try to always go through these details with your provider’s sales rep in order to get the best recommendation possible.
Always ask for an operating manual and technical documentation.
You might believe this is standard procedure but unfortunately it is not. Some packaging machinery manufacturers do not provide this info. So be sure to demand it.
At Maxpack all our machines come with their respective English operating manual and technical documentation such as the electric diagrams. Our service agent will give you all the information you need in order to prepare and have everything ready for the commissioning of your machine.
Ask your equipment provider for a list of components and features, as well as for servicing and training details.
Just like with an operating manual and technical documentation, asking for a list of components and features should be a standard demand from the product manufacturer to its equipment provider.
At Maxpack all our machines come with standard features and standardized parts. Features like PLC, Touch screen, sensors, servos motor and pneumatics from name brands such as Siemens, Schneider, SMC, Panasonic, Omron, among others.
The equipment servicing and training is done by our Maxpack Global Service Network partner UCM (ucmservice.com) which has the capability to offer international technical service, spare parts and post sales support directly or through its affiliated companies.
Secondary equipment
Below we’ve listed some secondary equipment we recommend for you to look up as well that complement your filling machinery technology:
- Filling lines always start with the in feed of the bottles. You can start with a rotary infeed table, place the bottles manually on the table and then they will automatically feed to the filling machine. Depending on the type of bottle and size you can also change to an automatic bottle unscrambler.
- Capping machine. To acquire a capping machine it is recommended that you standardize your bottles and caps to use the same sizes and shapes. If you have different cap sizes and shapes it would be difficult to automate the capping process.
- Labeling machine. This is a very important and time consuming process that usually creates bottlenecks.
- Rotary collection table. The collection table should be at the end of the line to collect the final product.
In summary, it is clear that when it comes to filling machines and other packaging machinery that form a filling line, the numerous variables that have to be taken into account as well as the necessity to maintain a balanced budget so companies do not overspend demand, requires that companies look for vendors that are a correct fit and have experience in the industry.
Maxpack has been working with leading international brands of food and non-food for the packaging and filling of premium retail formats as well as bulk formats.
To check out an example of how we filled bottles with essential oils and creams for US based client click here.
For more information on Maxpack, please contact us at sales@maxpackmachinery.com or give us a call at +1 (305) 424-1661. You can also visit our online machinery catalog by clicking here.
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