Rotech, the Hertfordshire designer of end-to-end coding and feeding systems, has launched a customer-driven development of its RF1-V offline coder. The new RF1-V+ is said to offer a 50 per cent improvement in speed through design improvements, including a shingling infeed and extended reservoir capacity.
The stand-up pouch is one of the fastest growing flexible packaging formats for a wide variety of end-use applications, but is not always easy to code online. Richard Pether, director at Rotech, explains: “Pouches that are formed, filled and sealed online are straightforward enough to code prior to filling, but when using pre-made pouches or trying to code onto filled packs, online coding becomes problematic. In these situations, an offline coding system is preferable from both an efficiency and a code quality perspective, as pouches can be printed offline before they are filled, and brought to the production line ready printed. Coding the pouch in its flat form results in a consistently clear, perfectly positioned code.”
Most offline coders use friction feeding. However, because this technology is designed to feed packs or pouches of a uniform thickness, accommodating a resealing mechanism often means it cannot do the job accurately. In developing its RF1-V offline pouch coder, Rotech assuaged this issue by using vacuum pick and place technology to pick a pouch from a stack, place it onto a conveyor for printing, and transfer the printed pouch neatly onto another stack for collection. Drawing on its feeding system expertise, Rotech has engineered the RF1-V+, an offline overprinting system that is capable of coding up to 60 pouches, with a maximum width of 375mm per minute.
Rotech Machines T: 01707 393 700 www.rotechmachines.com
