Fully automatic pallet chain conveyor for timber packages
We designed and built from scratch a fully automatic pallet chain conveyor for handling timber packs for a rapidly growing wood industry company. The system lifts packs with pneumatic paws for buffering, straightens the stack and tracks the position of each pack with an encoder, enabling multiple packs to be stored along the conveyor simultaneously. The lifting force of the paws is 1 tonne and the drive chain speed is 19.82 m/min, and the entire system operates in fully automatic mode with a manual backup mode.
Project Challenge
The company's rapid growth created a need for custom equipment that could not simply be ordered from a catalogue. The handling of wood packs had to become smooth and automatic, with the machine itself knowing the location of each pack and optimising storage. The solution therefore had to be designed and tested from the ground up.
How We Built It
The conveyor system created operates on clear logic: at the rear end, wood packs are lifted onto the conveyor, from where they move one by one to the front end and are lifted up with pneumatic grippers for buffering. Encoder-equipped motors enable multiple packs to be stored along the conveyor at once — the machine knows the exact location of each pack and can immediately move a new pack onto the empty grippers. A stack straightening function (crosswise positioning with grippers), a parallel pack alignment function, and a manually adjustable conveyor width (rails + locks) were added. The entire system operates in fully automatic mode and, if required, in manual mode, with the drive chain speed controlled by a frequency converter.
Technology used:
- Motor power 2 x 2.2 kW
- Output torque from the gearbox 940 Nm
- Gripper lifting force with pneumatic cylinders 1 tonne (at 6 bar pressure)
- Drive chain speed at 50 Hz 19.82 m/min (controllable with frequency converter)
What We Achieved
- Fully automated pallet chain conveyor that handles wood packs independently
- Encoder-based position tracking that knows the exact location of each pack
- Gripper lifting force 1 tonne (at 6 bar)
- Drive chain speed 19.82 m/min (controllable with frequency converter)
- Storage of multiple packs at once along the length of the conveyor — optimal use of space
- Flexible operation in both fully automatic and manual modes to meet the needs of growing production
Galerii
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