Metal detectors save on serious damage

To eliminate the problem of screws, nuts and other stray pieces of metal entering its granulator, New Zealand moulder Alto Plastics turned to Eriez Australia.

Alto Plastics, based in Auckland, is one of New Zealand's largest rigid plastic moulding company, producing injection and blow moulded products for the food (including dairy), beverage, petrochemical, cosmetic, pharmaceutical and industrial industries, with clients in both domestic and international markets.

The blow moulding division of Alto Plastics operates over 30 blow moulding machines with a capacity to produce containers from 30 to 8000ml, over the full spectrum of polymers.

Each of these machines has its own conveyor that brings tops and tails into granulators.

To eliminate the problem of screws, nuts and other stray pieces of metal entering the granulator together with the tops and tails, Alto Plastics turned to Eriez Australia which in turn approached Eriez Europe.

Eriez Europe specialise in the manufacture of lightweight metal detectors designed specifically for the plastics industry.

After further dialogue and correspondence with both Eriez affiliates in Australia and Europe Alto Plastics decided to install an Eriez Metalarm 6600 (MA 6600) metal detector unit on one of its high volume machines.

This metal detector has been primarily developed for the protection of granulators where low cost, easy to install metal detectors are required.

Its major application is the extrusion blow moulding industry where it is fitted to inclined conveyors to feed granulators with "tops and tails" to be recycled.

If metal is detected the conveyor is stopped and an alarm is activated.

The new MA 6600 control unit offers additional features and benefits over predecessor models, the MA 6301 and MA 6500 units, in that it provides improved immunity to electrical noise, switchable modes of operation, better serviceability (whereby the PCB is totally removable with no desoldering necessary) and surface mount technology for improved reliability.

It is important to note that these metal detectors are a very cost effective way of preventing serious damage to expensive machinery.

The cost of the metal detector is more often than not recouped when a few pieces of metal have been prevented from entering a granulator.

Alto Plastics' Blowmoulding Production Manager, Mark Ashby, has stated that the company is pleased with the performance of the Eriez MA 6600 metal detector.

There is a possibility that additional MA 6600 units will be ordered to be fitted on their other machines.

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