Next Generation of High Accuracy Vibratory Feeding Technology

Cope­ri­on K‑Tron is proud to announce a com­plete­ly new K3 line of vibra­to­ry feed­ers for dry bulk solids.  The inno­v­a­tive new feed­er design fea­tures a unique, patent-pend­ing dri­ve sys­tem com­bined with an advanced con­trol pack­age.  The new K3 vibra­to­ry feed­er is able to achieve accu­ra­cies aver­ag­ing 35% bet­ter over tra­di­tion­al vibra­to­ry tech­nolo­gies. This rev­o­lu­tion­ary new gen­er­a­tion of Cope­ri­on K‑Tron loss-in-weight vibra­to­ry feed­ers offers gen­tle han­dling of the bulk mate­r­i­al, high­er accu­ra­cy and faster prod­uct changeover, result­ing in less prod­uct waste, less down­time and bet­ter end prod­uct qual­i­ty as well as improved sustainability.

New technology brings significant advantages

These advan­tages are pos­si­ble thanks to ground­break­ing new tech­nol­o­gy. The key to achiev­ing high accu­ra­cy is the abil­i­ty to deliv­er a con­tin­u­ous, even prod­uct dis­charge with min­i­mal pul­sa­tions. The new K3 vibra­to­ry dri­ve is able to do this thanks to a com­plete­ly new shock absorber design. Con­ven­tion­al vibra­to­ry feed­ers use rub­ber or spring shock absorbers, which allow move­ment of the dri­ve in all direc­tions, result­ing in rota­tion­al motion. In con­trast to these con­ven­tion­al shock absorbers, the new K3 line uses a unique flex­i­ble pen­du­lum tech­nol­o­gy which pro­vides shock absorp­tion only par­al­lel to the desired direc­tion of motion, elim­i­nat­ing rota­tion­al move­ment. This par­al­lel motion ensures an even mate­r­i­al flow of the prod­uct along the entire length of the tray.

The advanced con­trol sys­tem and feed­er elec­tron­ics include inter­nal sen­sors which mea­sure accel­er­a­tion, dis­place­ment, load, cur­rent and tem­per­a­ture at rates of up to 25,000 times per sec­ond. The fast-act­ing con­troller then adjusts the vibra­to­ry dri­ve sig­nal to main­tain clean sinu­soidal dis­place­ment for opti­mal mass flow. The com­bi­na­tion of this unique dri­ve with the Cope­ri­on K‑Tron Smart­Con­nex con­trol sys­tem also results in extreme­ly low ener­gy con­sump­tion as com­pared to oth­er feed­ing tech­nolo­gies. Pow­er con­sump­tion can be as low as 20 Watts for feed rates as high as 6,000 kg/h, thus mak­ing it ide­al for improved pro­duc­tion sus­tain­abil­i­ty and min­i­mal heat dissipation.

The typ­i­cal feed­er pack­age con­sists of a feed hop­per, vibra­to­ry tray and vibra­to­ry dri­ve mount­ed on a weigh­ing sys­tem fea­tur­ing patent­ed, high accu­ra­cy Smart Force Trans­duc­er weigh­ing tech­nol­o­gy and com­bined with Smart­Con­nex con­trols. The mechan­i­cal pack­age is mod­u­lar in design, and ver­sa­tile in that it can accom­mo­date cus­tom tray con­fig­u­ra­tions and lengths, offer­ing the user more flex­i­bil­i­ty.  A spe­cial quick-release clamp mech­a­nism on the feed­er tray allows for quick prod­uct changeover. The absence of mechan­i­cal wear parts results in low­er main­te­nance require­ments and ensures gen­tle han­dling of the bulk mate­r­i­al. In addi­tion to the stan­dard design, a line of hygien­ic, easy-clean con­fig­u­ra­tions is also avail­able. These include a hygien­ic sil­i­cone cov­er to enclose the com­plete dri­ve assem­bly, mak­ing it also suit­able for food and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal applications.

Ideal for gentle handling of difficult bulk materials

Vibra­to­ry feed­ers are ide­al for the gen­tle han­dling of a wide vari­ety of mate­ri­als, includ­ing fri­able prod­ucts, abra­sive prod­ucts, prod­ucts with non-uni­form shapes, and glass fibers. They are ide­al­ly suit­ed to appli­ca­tions such as the high accu­ra­cy feed­ing of fin­ished food prod­ucts to pack­ag­ing lines, uncoat­ed tablets to coat­ing lines, as well as dif­fi­cult feed­ing of pel­lets or regrind to plas­tic extru­sion lines, for exam­ple in plas­tic recy­cling appli­ca­tions.. Vibra­to­ry feed­ers can often be a viable alter­na­tive to screw feed­ers for dif­fi­cult mate­ri­als, where gen­tle vibra­to­ry feed­ing may allow feed­ing with­out build-up which can occur on screws and screw tubes.

Cope­ri­on at the K 2019: Hall 14, Stand 14B19