Launched at Pack Expo, Dorner Manufacturing’s SmartPace conveyor takes randomly spaced products and containers and creates spaced or alternating batches. It can be used upstream of case packers, robots and other equipment.
It can also merge multiple lines together without product stops or gates. It can accept and smoothly transfer parts items as short as 3 inches in length at speeds up to 200 feet per minute.
It is a non-contact system that does not use guides or other mechanical means. A photo-eye detects the product presence that signals to the servo motor control that automatically varies the conveyor speed and conveyor junction placement of the back-to-back variable-speed conveyor belts to generate an evenly spaced product. It uses Yaskawa America controls, servos and variable-speed drives and has its own HMI interface.
SmartPace sizes range to 6 feet in length and 4 to 12 inches wide, according to marketing manager Stacy Pabst, who also disclosed during Pack Expo that the vendor has two of the systems in field test.
