Description:
The Camel Sense Head for the ADR-50DR is designed for use with the ADR-50DR Remote Unit to provide closure monitoring for plastic containers with foil or Mylar closures. Since these closures do not have memory (will not return to a “flat” condition) as does a metal can or jar lid, they will not show a positive lid displacement when not sealed properly. If a can or jar has internal pressure or vacuum, the lid will be displaced (pulled in or distended) an amount roughly proportional to the internal pressure or vacuum. If the container leaks, the lid returns to its relaxed position, and because of its difference from the lid position of sealed containers, can reliably be detected and removed from the production line.

A container with a foil or plastic film lid will show a convex lid with internal pressure or a concave lid with internal vacuum. However, once the lid is moved from its relaxed position by internal vacuum or pressure, the foil or plastic film lid will not spring back to its relaxed position upon loss of vacuum or pressure due to leakage, as will a can or jar lid. Thus a container with a misplaced cover not sealed properly causing a gross leaker, will remain flat, but a container with a small leak will bulge or pull in when closed. As internal pressure or vacuum bleeds off, the lid will tend to retain its bulged or pulled in shape.

The Camel uses a simple mechanism to push down a bulged lid of each container on line. For those containers that have not leaked, the lid will spring back to the pressurized position, but for leaking containers, when pushed down by the Camel mechanism, this will force headspace gas out through the leak, and the lid will remain in the depressed positioned. This allows the ADR-50DC to remove leakers from the line.

This, of course, will only work on containers that have a positive internal pressure that causes the lid to visibly bulge when properly sealed. This bulge is created when the enclosed product is filled hot, or immediately after closing when the heat from the platen of the closing machine heats the headspace gas causing it to expand. When using the Camel on non-hot filled product where the bulge is created by the heated platen, the Camel must be installed immediately after closing, as the headspace gas cools rapidly and pulls the lid down as it cools.

The Camel Sense Head incorporates two depressor wheel assemblies (a camel has two humps) which roll across the top of each container as it travels down the conveyor under the Sense Head.