In service at a food processing plant, this operation has fresh product arriving in containers that are placed on a motorized conveyor. The containers travel along the conveyor, over a Weigh-Tronix conveyor scale where each is weighed, and the time recorded. Finally, the conveyor dumps each container's contents into a hopper, which feeds the fresh product into a blast freezer. To control the rate at which product is fed into the hopper, a hydraulic gate is attached to the conveyor, and works by only allowing a single container to pass through at a time. The time between each gate opening is controlled by the WI-1310 scale indicator, which makes the decision when to open the gate based on the desired throughput set by the operator, and the net weight that is passing over the scale. By making continuous adjustments in the timing of each gate opening, the hopper feed control system gets maximum efficiency from the blast freezer, without danger of overloading it and spoiling product.

System Specs

·       Ricelake conveyor scale, stainless steel construction, photo sensors excellent for random sized products.

·       Ricelake 1280 programmable scale indicator near unlimited transaction data storage.

·       Windows 10 PC application includes product table setup, production reporting.

Automated Tote Filler Controller

Designed to control the filling of containers with product pieces being moved along a motorized conveyor. A Weigh-Tronix scale indicator turns on and off 2-speed motors in response to the container's weight. Once a target weight and a dribble weight is set, the system fills at top-speed until the dribble weight is reached. Then filling continues at the slower speed, until it shuts off at precisely the target weight. This system is used in several mussel processing plants.

Controller for Mixing Feed

A Weigh-Tronix scale indicator tracks and helps control the quantity of various ingredients and medicines that go into fish feed. In the software, a table of ingredients is created, and recipes for allowed feed mixes are defined that specify which ingredients to add and their quantity. When the operator selects the recipe, he is stepped through each element to add to the batch, and the weight of each is verified and recorded for quality control purposes. A PC application stores the weights and time of each batch for production reporting.