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Interface Sensors Optimize Food Canning and Production

In the food packaging and production industry, consistency and quality are key. Due to this, many food production and packaging facilities are utilizing automation more than ever. The automation process includes monitoring actions and tasks using force measurement sensors. These sensors collect critical data to maximize food production and packaging efficiency.

Interface provides force measurement sensors and systems for equipment, devices, and machines that produce and package consumable products across various use cases. From harvesting and sorting to processing and packing, force measurements improve quality control, efficiency, and safety in food production and packaging. For example, production line engineers use sensors to detect and reject defective products, monitor equipment performance, and identify potential hazards.

The versatility of Interface sensor technologies provides the ability to innovate and solve challenges related to condition, consistency, and productivity for canning and food production. Whether using a small LBM Compression Load Button Load Cell within a production line machine or deploying multi-axis sensors during production to gather feedback in real-time, Interface has a diverse range of transducer and instrumentation options.

How Interface Products Improve Canning and Food Production

  • Monitoring the pressure applied to a mixer to ensure consistent product quality.
  • Regulating the force applied to a canning line to prevent cans from being damaged.
  • Detecting unknown items in food products.
  • Measuring the force in picking fruit or vegetables without damaging them.
  • Capping with precision to prevent crushing the bottles.
  • Sorting by the size, weight, and firmness of produce ensures it meets quality standards.
  • Controlling the force applied to food during cutting, slicing, grinding, and other processing steps.
  • Ensuring food is packaged correctly and safely, with the correct pressure and cushioning.
  • Weighing food products precisely to ensure accurate packaging.
  • Monitoring the force applied to a robotic arm to ensure safe and efficient handling of food products.

Using Interface load cells, food production and packaging companies can gather instant force measurements from their production line. For instance, when a canned goods company is filling its packaging with any food, a load cell can be used to measure the weight of the food in the can and automatically notify the filling machine when it is complete. This will tell the device to move on to the next can. All this can be done without any human intervention.

Alternatively, force sensors can be used to monitor the health of the production line. Force sensors are often installed in industrial machines to collect data on the operations of devices. This data can be analyzed and used to help predict when a machine might need maintenance or a conveyor belt can be outfitted with force sensors to help keep everything aligned. This contributes to greater food packaging and production quality and less downtime for the production line.

Interface force measurement solutions are used in all aspects of food production, including agriculture equipment, weighing scales, industrial automation robotics, and lifting machines used to transport consumer goods. Here are a few customer use cases.

Commercial Food Processing

A food processing plant wants accurate results of their in-motion check weighing equipment when food is weighted and processed down the belt. They want to ensure production line efficiency and food quality. The customer also wants real-time results of their food being weighed and a load cell that can endure the industry’s highly regulated environment. Multiple Interface scale load cells can be installed in the customer’s in-motion check weigher at the specific points where the food is weighed on the belt. The SPI High Capacity Platform Scale Load Cells deliver precise weighing results. When connected to the 920i Programmable Weight Indicator and Controller, it will give the customer real-time results of food weight, which can read up to four scale channels. Read more: WEIGHING: Commercial Food Processing.

Fruit Weighing and Packaging

A customer owns and operates a fruit packaging plant. They want to weigh the bins full of fruit loaded onto conveyor belts that transfer the fruit to other steps of the distribution process to read the hands of the consumer in grocery stores. Interface suggests installing SPI Low Capacity Platform Scale Load Cells and WTS-AM-1E Wireless Strain Bridge Transmitter Modules in the center of the platforms the fruit bins are loaded on. The WTS-AM-1E wirelessly transmits the data collected from the SPI to the WTS-BS-1-HA Wireless Handheld Display for multiple transmitters and the WTS-BS-6 Wireless Telemetry Dongle Base Station when connected to the customer’s computer. Read more: Fruit Weighing App Note.

Food and Beverage Conveyor Belt equipped with PBLC Pillow Block Load Bearing Load Cells and 920i Programmable Weight Indicator and Controller

Food and Beverage Conveyor Belt

Conveyor belts for the food and beverage industry must be maintained and adequately aligned to transport the products. A load cell is necessary to prevent misalignment and to reduce the risk of damage or malfunction of the belt while in operation. PBLC Pillow Block Load Bearing Load Cells can be installed onto the conveyor belt. They are designed for easy maintenance and will measure and monitor the force of the conveyor belt while preventing misalignment. Using the PBLC Pillow Block Load Cells, Interface’s customer successfully maintained the proper alignment of the conveyor belt for the food and beverages being transported while also monitoring the forces being implemented. Read more: Food and Beverage Conveyor Belt.

Snack Weighing and Packaging Machine

A snack manufacturing brand wanted to weigh the amount of their snacks automatically dispersed into the bags during packaging. In this case, they want to weigh their potato chips being packaged. The company also wanted to ensure the potato chips were at the exact weight needed to meet regulatory standards to be distributed to consumers in the public. Interface’s solution was to use multiple SPI Platform Scale Load Cells and install them to the potato multi-head weigher and packaging machine. The SPI Platform Scale Load cells were installed inside the mount that attaches the head weigher to the packaging machine. Force results from the potato chips were read by the load cells and sent to the ISG-isolated, where the customer could control the automated production from their command center. Using this solution, the customer could determine the weight of the potato chips being distributed into their bags with highly accurate results. They also were able to control the automated production process with the provided instrumentation. They will use this same weighing method for other snacks that need to be packaged.

As many industries turn to automation to improve productivity and quality while reducing waste, force sensors will play an increasingly critical role in providing accurate and immediate data to optimize equipment and machines. In the food service industry, we are already seeing a significant impact on the quality of production processes using force measurement.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Interface Manufacturing and Production Solutions

Force Measurement for Efficiency in Food Processing and Packaging

Load Cells for Smarter and More Efficient Weighing

Watch how sensors are used in industrial robotics for packaging.

Vertical Farming for Sustainable Food Production on Earth and Beyond

Interface Helps to Move Agriculture Innovation Forward

Chicken Weighing

 

 

 

Digital Instrumentation 101

Digital instrumentation used for test and measurement provides faster data input and output, and more robust analytics. Interface offers several types of digital instrumentation devices that transform load cell and strain bridge input into digital data output in numerous protocols and bus formats.

Instrumentation that utilizes analog output has long been the standard in the industry. As new requirements for use cases and applications grow, test and measurement engineers and professionals find digital instrumentation advantageous because of the lower cost, easy integration and scalability. They also like the advantage of daisy-chaining multiple sensors together on a single cable run.

Advancements in sensor technologies coincide with growing demands to gather more testing data. This is seen through the use of multi-axis sensors, along with requirements for multi-channel instrumentation that can integrate into existing systems already designed with specific digital connections and protocols, as highlighted in using Interfaces BX8 with our 6-Axis sensors. Change is also coming with a strong desire to utilize instrumentation that can easily work within cable free environments or in remote locations.

In addition to improving speed of data output, digital instrumentation offers an abundance of benefits. This is primarily due to the digital signal, as they are less susceptible to noise and are more secure. Digital instrumentation typically has built in error detection. Digital signals are best for transmitting signals across longer distances or when you need to allow for simultaneous multi-directional transmissions. Many people like the ease of integration, both into existing networks as well as with other testing devices.

Types of Interface Digital Instrumentation

  • Indicators and Bidirectional Indicators
  • Portable and Programmable Indicators
  • Battery Powered Indicators and Bidirectional Indicators
  • Single and Multi-Channel Transmitters
  • Controllers and Programmable Controllers
  • USB Output Modules
  • PC Interface Modules
  • Sensor to USB Output Converters
  • Data Acquisition Systems
  • Wireless Instrumentation

Connection options available for Interface Digital Instrumentation include, RS232, RS485, RS422, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth, and Ethernet Protocols. The types of data output protocols available include ASCII, Modbus, CANopen, DeviceNet, Profibus DP Modbus/TCP, Ethernet TCP/IP, Ethernet/IP, EtherCAT and several others. See the complete list of connections and protocols in our Digital Instrumentation Overview.

Top selling digital instrumentation models from Interface, with many available in various protocols:

Do you have questions about the type of instrumentation that will support your application?  You can see more of the solutions by visiting our instrumentation selection guide.  Here are six questions begin evaluating your instrumentation options:

  • Where are you going to connect your sensor technology and how?
  • Do you need to store your data?
  • Do you prefer an analog or digital output device?
  • Are you going to plug-in your instrumentation or use hand-held, wireless or Bluetooth connectivity?
  • How will your data output be displayed?
  • How many channels do you need for your project or program?

For additional help with instrumentation, please contact our application engineers.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Digital Instrumentation for Force Measurement

Ultimate BlueDAQ Software Guide for Interface Instrumentation

Interface Instrumentation Definitions

Instrumentation Selection Guide

Advancements in Instrumentation Webinar

Interface Instructional on Instrumentation Event

Instrumentation

Force Measurement for Efficiency in Food Processing and Packaging

Interface provides the food processing and packaging industry with sensor technologies that increase efficiency and reduce waste. Like many industrial facilities, organizations are pushing hard to integrate new technology and automation that makes processes faster, more adaptable, and smart.

One of the factors critical to creating a smarter factory is by utilizing force measurement sensors that are designed for collecting data in each production phase, as well as monitoring equipment in use for performance optimization.

Interface has a wide variety of precision-based accurate and reliable sensors used for various applications in food processing and packaging. Our customers are using miniature load cells within the production line to apply the exact force needed to delicately press a logo onto a edible product. We have others using multi-axis sensors from Interface to verify accuracy of intricately machined parts while moving through the manufacturing process.

We’ve provided sensors for industrial automation solutions to thousands of customers using in-stock as well as custom application-specific sensors for OEM equipment. Read our Force Measurement is Reducing Waste and Automating the Consumer Packaging Industry OEM case study to learn more.

Below are additional examples that highlight uses case of actual applications in food processing and packaging.  You can see additional industrial application highlights in our solutions overview by clicking here.

Commercial Food Processing

A food processing plant wanted accurate results of their in-motion check weigher when food is weighed and processed while moving down the belt.  A check weigher is an automated machine for checking the weight of packaged commodities. This included ensuring production line efficiency and food quality, real-time results of their food being weighed, and a load cell that can endure the food industry’s soiled environment.

Interface offered a solution using multiple SPI High-Capacity Platform Scale Load Cells that could be installed in the customer’s equipment that is sued through the production line where product is weighed on the conveyor. The SPI High-Capacity Platform Scale Load Cells delivers precise weighing data. When connected to the 920i Programmable Weight Indicator and Controller, the solution provides the customer real-time results of the weight of the food. The 920i Programmable Weight Indicator and Controller can also read up to four scale channels in real-time. The processing gains in efficiency were visualized and managed during the weighing process to optimize control and production. 

Water Bottle Dispensing and Weighing

 

A beverage bottle manufacturer wanted to dispense the right amount of fluid into their bottles, and then weigh their bottles to ensure it is at the labeled weight on their product packaging. This is both to minimize waste, but also to meet the standard requirements noted on the packaging. Interface suggested using the MBP Miniature Beam Load Cell, and attaching it under a plate or platform the water bottle is placed on while it is being filled with fluids. The force weight is measured by the MBP Miniature Beam Load Cell, and connected to the 9870 High-Speed High-Performance TEDS Ready Indicator where results are captured, displayed, and recorded by the customer utilizing their water bottle assembly machinery. With this solution, the water bottle manufacturer received highly accurate results of each water bottle being weighed in real-time, using the accuracy to reduce waste and speed processing time.

Snack Weighing and Packaging Machine                     

A snack manufacturing brand wanted to weigh the amount of consumable food product automatically dispersed into the bags during the packaging process. In this case, they needed to weigh their potato chips being packaged and ensure the potato chips are at the exact weight needed due to regulatory standards. Interface’s solution was to use multiple SPI Platform Scale Load Cells and install it to the potato multi-head weigher and packaging machine. The SPI Platform Scale Load cells were installed inside of the mount that attaches the head weigher to the packaging machine. Force results from the potato chips bag fill are read by the load cells and sent to the ISG Isolated DIN Rail Mount Signal Conditioner, where the customer was able to control the automated production from their command center.

The customer was able to determine the weight of the potato chips being distributed into their bags with highly accurate results. They also were able to control the automated production process with the provided instrumentation. They will use this same weighing method for other snacks that need to be packaged.

To learn more about Interface solutions designed for the modern factory, or specifically the food and beverage industry, contact our expert application engineers.

Additional Packaging Application Note:

Candy Stamp Force Testing

Force Measurement Instrumentation 101

There are many types of instrumentation devices used in force measurement applications. Interface provides high-quality instrumentation tools to use with our wide range of load cells and torque transducers.

The variety of instrumentation solutions includes signal conditioners, output modules, high-speed data loggers, portable load cell indicators, weight indicators, and junction boxes.

Depending on the application requirements, Interface has solutions for full-data acquisition as well as wireless technology telemetry systems. Our multi-channel bridge amplifier has 4-channel capability, while the INF-USB2 universal serial has a sensor to USB output converter.  With more than 50 instrumentation products, the solutions range for all types of uses.

To provide you with more insight, here’s an overview of a few of Interface’s instrumentation offerings along with educational video demonstrations to help you.

4 Channel 9840-400-1-T Intelligent Indicator 

The Model 9840 is TEDS plug-and-play ready! It is suitable for use in calibration labs, field service, or anywhere high accuracy is important.  This intelligent digital indicator has auto-setup for multiple load cells with fast, direct analog output.  Features include two interactive 7″ graphical touch screen displays, remote sense, low noise, 24-bit internal resolution. It has a USB port with RS232 communication, mV/V calibration and can store calibrations for up to 25 sensors.  This unit also has self-calibration and is TEDS plug and play ready and IEEE 1451.4 compliant. It is fully compatible with the Gold Standard® Calibration Systems.

DIG-USB Output Module

Interface’s DIG-USB Module is a compact, high-precision strain gage converter used for converting a strain gage sensor input to a digital output. It connects to a computer via a USB port. This product allows high precision measurements to be communicated directly to a computer and is aimed at applications which require high-accuracy measurement repeatability. With the appropriate drivers installed, the DIG-USB appears as a virtual serial port to the computer.

Simply by plugging the device into a computer, data can be extracted from most strain gage bridge input sensors and acquired by software which allows data manipulation removing the need for amplifiers, filters, and multi-meters.

Watch this video for a getting started demonstration with the DIG-USB Output Module.

9890 Strain Gage Indicator

Our 9890 Strain Gage Indicator is a full-featured multipurpose and easy-to-use digital strain gage and load cell meter ideal for weight and force measurement applications. With a max current of 350 mA at 10 V, it can support up to twelve 350 Ω load cells (minimum load resistance of 28 Ω), making it ideal for multipoint weight measurement applications. It accepts mV input signals up to 300 mV (unipolar) and ± 250 mV (bipolar). The 9890’s powerful dual-scale capability allows the measurement to be displayed in two different units of measure.

This video provides an overview of the 9890 Strain Gage Indicator and how it works.

920i Programmable Weight Indicator/Controller

The Interface 920i instrumentation device is a programmable, multi-channel digital weight indicator and controller. The configuration can be performed using the front panel, with an attached USB-type keyboard (or PS/2 keyboard if using a serial interface), or by using the iRev 4 utility. Model 920i is bidirectional and comes in a NEMA 4X stainless enclosure. Standard options include 8,000,000 internal counts, 4.6 x 3.4-inch LCD 7-digit display and a measurement rate that goes up to 960 Hz. Options are available that allow you to include analog and relay outputs.

This video provides an easy-to-follow getting start guide for the 920i Programmable Weight Indicator/Controller.

These are just a few of the dozens of instrumentation solutions Interface offers, all designed for unique application needs.  For more information on Interface’s instruments, visit our web product page or review our product brochure for detailed specifications on every product.

Instrumentation Brochure

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