Edf Europe is very well known as a professional producer of RDC stackers highly flexyble and performing , at the end of the last year the EDF stackers range have been widened by a top level new machine which allow the RDC to reach it’s best in perfomances: we are obiously talking about the vacuum stacker.
The main feature of this machine is to transport the board by suction by the top up to the stacking point and let them drop onto the forming batch.
This working way presents several advantages against the traditional stackers: it allows to nick the boxes in both senses with no speed or dimensional limits, also the flexybility is extremely improved: the blanks infact, are individually processed and touch each other in the stacking moment only, in this way there are no jams possibilities due to the shingling between boxes which are tipical in a traditional stacker.
Set up times are dramaticllay reduced, there is nothing to be manually adjusted, it is possible to store the recipies for all the different jobs and recall them once needed with a set up time of a couple of minutes.
Since every die cutted blank is transported by suction and dropped directly onto the batch, this machine is more tolerant to odd box shapes , this job types infact, in a traditional stacker have to stop the blanks against a stop plate to match the stacking position. It is everybody experience that an odd shape against a stop plate bounces or rotates creating very likely a bad stacking quality or worst a jam.
With the vacuum stacker this problem cannot happen since the stacking and stop point of every blank is electronically calculated by an axis control, the transport belts stop for a blink in the right position and release the blank in the exact position where it should be.
Furthermore the individually processed blanks can be counted with no errors.
Following the logic of an high productive machine the stacker is equipped with a samples ejecting devicewhich allows the operator to take off the line boxes samples with no feed interrupt and in total safety by receiving them at the line side.
This feature is very usefull not only for the quality control but also during the set up time to check the printing before to start the real production and send then the production flow to the paletisation line and dispatch.
The same device can be used together with automatic quality control SW to generate an automatic non compliants discard.
The stripping unit of this machine is derived by the well known stripper stacker traditionally produced by edf, also in this case the set up is fully automatic and the speed synchronized with the RDC.
To grant an easy access to the die for the machine operator, also with rdc fixed onto the floor, the stripping unit slide forward in production direction creating this way an operator passage of about 90 cm, in the same time the stripping unit slides ahead an operator platform slides onto the waste channel allowing the operator an easy and safe access to the area.
The machine is conceived to work allways with nicks in both directions simulating this way the operation of a flat bed die cutter, since the nicks have to be separated via a breaker th emachine can work in batch mode only .
For whom wishing to work nickless the use of a good shingling stacker like the Flexystack driven by a well trained operator is recommended.
The vacuum stacker is open to communication with external systems and for the RDC’s produced and sold by EDF group the order change is automatically synchronized with the entire line.
The vacuum stacker works in perfect conjunction with Flexybreak breakers and with the Unipal paletisation line but it can also be installed in mixed lines with no special problems.
Despite the young age of this project several units have been already sold demonstrating again the EDF capacity to be in tune with the market.
Next summer EDF Europe will arrange an open house event at the R&D center based in Treviso to present the new 821 casemaker and the vacuum stacker too, more detailed dates and schedules will be announced soon.