Specialty Tamp Modules - Nautilus Systems Meets Customer Requirements
Nautilus Systems, Inc. has developed several specialty tamp modules to provide special functions as demanded by our customers. For many applications our standard pneumatic Tamp, which provides 175mm of stroke and a preconfigured adapter plate for quick change of label-specific tooling, has been a successful module. However, several applications of special requirements have been brought to our attention by customers and our engineering team has met the challenge in each case by design and implementation of specialty modules that are now a part of our portfolio of solutions.
The simplest version required a longer stroke for the Tamp actuator. In this case the customer requested over 300mm of stroke. The longer stroke was required as a result of the physical constraints of a conveyor system that was used to transfer the product to which the label was applied that prohibited mounting the PL series applicator within range of the 175mm stroke. Our engineers met the challenge by specifying and procuring a specialized tamp cylinder of over 400mm stroke and implementing longer bearing rails which allowed us to utilize 90%+ of our standard tamp actuator, maintain our high accuracy, and minimize the cost impact to our customer.
A second application required our system to compensate automatically for positional variability in labels on the web in the ‘non-feed’ or ‘cross-web’ direction. In the vast majority of applications that require our precision application systems the die-cut material is provided with tight tolerance for position in the non-feed direction. Our system, using precision drives and a finely tuned optical sensor is able to locate each label or adhesive component in the feed direction and then move that component to a precision location for pickup. We do not normally need to adjust for positional tolerance in the non-feed direction. However, this customer had a very special label constructed of multiple layers of materials that resulted in a +/-3mm positional tolerance of the label on the web in the non-feed direction. Their placement requirement in that direction was +/- 0.5mm. Therefore we were required to implement an additional axis of precision motion control so that we could scan the label in the non-feed axis and accommodate the variation in position. The resulting module is our Sidescan Tamp module. The Sidescan Tamp moves a standard precision material sensor along the required axis of the label or adhesive component, moves the Tamp to the correct position to properly align the vacuum chuck to the label for peeling, and then makes the correct offset move to properly align the label or adhesive component for placement onto the substrate. All with only a minor increase in cycle time. As a result our PL series applicators can incorporate up to three axes of precision motion to accommodate a wide range of material variations.
Other applications require placement of adhesive components onto planes that are not parallel to the plane on which the labels or adhesive components feed through our PL series systems. When mounted in the standard orientation the PL series machines feed the labels or adhesive components on a plane that is parallel to the floor. In this orientation the label or adhesive component is normally applied to a flat surface that is also parallel to the floor by moving the component vertically downward until it meets the surface of the substrate. However, some applications require that the label be applied to a vertical surface which is perpendicular to the floor. For this purpose we developed our RT90 Tamp Module. The RT90 Tamp, restricted for use with labels of size up to 50 x 50mm, reorients the label or adhesive component after peeling it from the web to a vertical plane. The RT90 Tamp can then extend to apply the label or adhesive component onto the correct substrate surface. The RT180 provides another special actuation by flipping the label over. In a typical application the label, after being peeled from the web, has the exposed adhesive surface facing the floor. One customer presented us a requirement to apply a label to the bottom side of their component. By rotating the RT180 Tamp Module 180 degrees we can reorient the label or adhesive component so that the exposed adhesive surface faces the ceiling. From that point we can extend the RT180 Tamp to apply the component to the correct surface substrate or we can move the substrate to cause it to contact the exposed adhesive of the adhesive component. Either way the customer gets the function that they needed and we, once again, rise to the occassion in providing specialized solutions to accessorize our standard PL series machines.