Product category:
Knobs, Handles and Enclosure Hardware
News Release from: Protex Fasteners | Subject: Mateline Automation
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 22 April 2002
Fasteners enable Hayden's to bake in
safety
Protex Fasteners has just provided an ideal solution for Mateline Automation, which was faced with a problem familiar to every company engaged in the manufacture of food production lines.
Protex Fasteners has just provided an ideal solution for Mateline Automation of Walkers Road, North Moons Moat, Redditch, which was faced with a problem familiar to every company engaged in the manufacture, modification and maintenance of food production lines That is where to source specialised stainless-steel fasteners fit for purpose and able to meet health and safety as well as hygiene conditions
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 16 May 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
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Mateline Automation has recently manufactured and supplied to a subsidiary of RHM - Hayden's Bakeries of London Road, Devizes, Wiltshire, two similar, inline machines from its 4000 Series for the production of confectionery goods - jam tarts, mince pies, custard tarts, pastry cases and so forth.
The machines are constructed to high specification in stainless steel and have an output of approximately 3600 products per hour.
Mateline Automation's customer Hayden's Bakeries laid down a number of stringent requirements for safety features on the equipment, one of which concerned modification of the shatterproof, polycarbonate enclosures.
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Hayden's Bakeries had namely identified a possible risk of operators bending back the plastic inspection and access panels of conventional enclosures, in order to get into the machine while it was still running, but without tripping the safety shutoff microswitches linked to the panels.
The simple solution was to replace those plastic panels with rigid, stainless steel, hinged doors fitted with small Makrolon inspection windows.
However, the thorny problem remained of how to close the doors positively to ensure failsafe intervention by the shutoff microswitches.
So Mateline Automation called on the experience and expertise of independent UK company Protex Fasteners, which manufactures the world's largest catalogue range of lever-action, overcentre fasteners.
Protex recommended at once its stainless-steel ProLatch, a unique and sturdy design which has the ability not only to pull two surfaces together - in a single plane as does a normal overcentre fastener - but also to apply a strong closing force in a second plane, thereby in this case ensuring correct operation of the microswitches.
The neat ProLatch (only 105mm long with its mating catchplate) has proved itself well up to the task.
Using two per door, each ProLatch has an impressively high breaking strength of 325kgf (3.19kN).
Easy to mount, it has an integral safety catch and can accept a padlock or pin seal, as methods of forestalling inadvertent or otherwise unauthorised ingress.
Mateline Automation drew further on Protex's extensive and versatile product selection by fitting some more conventional fasteners and handles to the drop-down access panels, covers and scrap drawers below the conveyors, thus making the frequent cleaning and maintenance routines that much easier.
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