Lubrication-free technology for labelling machines

Krones AG manufactures and sells machines, lines and systems primarily for the beverage and liquid food industry and sees itself as a system provider and not just a pure machine supplier. The turnkey systems cover all processes, from beverage production, packaging, labelling and inspection to palletising. There are various labelling processes, including Krones' Sleevematic series of stretch-wrapping and shrink-wrapping technology.

From the belt station to the sleeve brush and the infeed and outfeed sensor through to the manual adjustment of the pre-shrink and the height adjustment of the deflection rollers, all of these areas needed to be completely lubrication and maintenance-free, highly dynamic and needed to reduce downtimes to a minimum.

Krones AG manufactures and sells machines, lines and systems primarily for the beverage and liquid food industry and sees itself as a system provider and not just a pure machine supplier. The turnkey systems cover all processes, from beverage production, packaging, labelling and inspection to palletising. There are various labelling processes, including Krones' Sleevematic series of stretch-wrapping and shrink-wrapping technology.

Krones is now offering a further development in this area with the Sleevematic TS. The TS stands for Top Speed, as it makes it possible to label up to 50,000 containers per hour with just one unit. Before the individual sleeves are shot onto the bottles, cans or other containers, they are no longer cut individually from the reel, but the sleeve is now micro-perforated. This enables continuous movement of the sleeves. Instead of cutting knives, the Sleevematic TS uses two rotating perforation knives. In addition to the increased output, another advantage is the significantly longer service life of the knives. While the four cutting knives previously required can be used for around five million cuts, the two perforation knives now used are designed for up to 70 million cuts.

Rotary and linear bearing solutions are used at the various stations of the labeller.
As the highest safety standards apply in food and beverage technology to protect consumers, it is important that designers can rely on products that do not require external lubrication, which prevents contamination of the food or beverages.

Based on Krones' modular concept, existing components were also used for the Sleevematic TS. The company continues to rely on our lubrication-free plastic solutions for various adjustments and other moving components.

The transverse adjustment of the belt station is guaranteed by an iglidur ® J trapezoidal thread flange nut, which is dirt-resistant and lubrication-free. For the height adjustment, iglidur® J flange nuts and FJUMT adapters are used for simple assembly in combination with the sheet metal bending parts.
The height adjustment of the sleeve brush is ensured by a trapezoidal lead screw nut in combination with drylin® R all-plastic plain bearings. This allowed us to work very compactly and favourably.
The height adjustment of the pre-shrink was realised with a drylin® SLW-1040 lead screw module including clamping, position indicator and crank for format adjustment. The compact design enables simple integration. The width of the cross adjustment can also be precisely adjusted using a hand crank.
An SLW-2080 lead screw module is used to adjust the height of the downholder. It enables simple and user-friendly operation of the machine. In addition, plastic-energy chains take over the guidance of the cable.
The infeed and outfeed sensors are adjusted using a WS-1040 profile rail and a carriage including manual clamp. Thanks to the individual carriages, it was possible to make the adjustment very compact and flexible.
A drylin® SLW-1040 lead screw module including angular drive and accessories is used to adjust the height of the return pulley. The compact adjustment unit was designed to be user-friendly thanks to the angular drive. The adjustable roller determines the position of the additional perforation on the label.
Previously used metallic bearings in the deflection rollers did not run smoothly enough and the entire roll stopped in places. Today, they consist of two smooth-running xiros polymer ball bearings and an anodised aluminium tube. Depending on the size of the system, up to 36 deflection rollers are used. The xirodur® high-performance plastic in the ball bearings also enables very good friction and wear values.