In Zone Brands Chooses PDC Shrink Bander for Tamper Evidence

In Zone Brands beverages are not only healthy, they are fun for kids. The containers are fun shapes, easy to hold, and have cartoon character figurine heads on each package. In order to keep the figurine head in position and provide tamper evidence through the point of sale, PDC developed a special version F-160-TS Shrinkbander to apply the sleeve over the heads, which come to the machine randomly; Batman follows Mickey, who follows Cinderella, all of which are larger than the bottle and cap diameters. The challenge was to put a very large shrink band over the heads, position them accurately and shrink them uniformly, at 120 bpm.

 

PDC provided a solution to this challenge by adding special vacuum blocks to the F-160's application finger assembly. The container is presented in a timing screw under the point of application, dwelled in the screw, and the band is fed off the mandrel by the applicator fingers and held open in vacuum at four points as it is lowered to the cap level, and released onto guide rails at the proper height. Teflon coated metal guide rails extend into the entrance of a PDC Model KST 80-712 Steam Tunnel, which shrinks the oversized bands smoothly and without distortion.

The PDC Team provided a unique custom-engineered solution using a standard PDC system, creative machinery development and an off-the-shelf tunnel. Click here to see a video of the system in action.

Source: PDC