ERNST TIMING SCREW CO
Contact: Lee Cannon
1534 Bridgewater Rd
Bensalem, PA 19020
U.S.
Phone: 215 639 1438
Fax: 215 244 0166
Milled screws.
Types of Screws
* Straight Root Designs (Transfer, 180 Degree Discharge, Multiple Dwells, Grouping)
* Custom and Multiple Screw Designs (Orienting, Combining, Dividing, Turning, Shingling)
* Multiple Combining System
* Multiple Dividing System
* Screw Drive Units
Complete Customer Satisfaction
For over 35 years, the timing screw specialists at Ernst have always pampered our valued customers with courtesy and respect. It's part of the service that makes us unique. We're large enough to meet your most technically demanding packaging requirements, yet small enough to personally care about you.
Come to us for answers to your toughest questions. You can rely on our expertise, our highest quality workmanship and most personal service. That's why leading packaging machinery manufacturers specify Ernst precision-engineered timing screws.
Summary
Timing screws can be specially designed either singly or in a combination of patterns to adapt to your machines specific requirements.
Running on a rotary equipment, a timing screw is accompanied by a star wheel to perform tasks such as air cleaning, filling, capping, labeling or leak detection. Placed alongside the infeed star wheel, the timing screw can be used to accept, separate, accelerate and discharge containers at the appropriate machine pitch diameters or pitch centers required for the particular machine.
From needle syringes to five gallon pails, timing screws can be made to perform functions not generally believed to be possible in packaging operations.
Timing screw design, however, must be the product of careful and deliberate engineering and with a precise tolerance that is the result of experience craftsmanship and computer controlled technology.
With extensive and continuing research, more and more applications are being handled by timing screws everyday. Call your timing screw specialist for advice gained from experience ... especially when designing new equipment or for feasibility studies.
Straight-Root Designs
The basic straight-root design is formed when lines of the inside diameter are parallel to the shaft.
In the common form of this design, thread height is gradually increased to the outside diameter to create a smooth container infeed. Variations on this and other screws designs, numbers and placement, enable timing screws to divide and merge containers. They can accelerate, decelerate or even stop the motion of containers from special packaging operations.
Inverse-taper-infeed: This configuration accepts randomly fed containers more readily than the straight-root design and is also more effective in separating square containers, a design in which the initial pocket of the screw is formed at the maximum outside diameter, then it tapers gradually to the root diameter.
Transfer.
Particularly useful on high speed lines, this screw accepts containers at the discharge end of one machine and positively controls the container to the infeed of the next machine. This prevents container contact, thus eliminating scratching and spillage of the contents. The pitch of the screw can remain the same or be varied as called for by the machine pitch requirements.
180-Degree Discharge.
Known as the dual-flight, or double-lead screw, this design will maximize container output by means of two threads, cut into the screw. These threads discharge containers every 180 degrees of rotation instead of the normal 360 degree standard. This effectively doubles the output. Uses for this screw is limited, however, since not all packaging machines are capable of functioning with this timing arrangement.
Multiple Dwell.
This screw design, known as stop-position, can stop a container one or more times to perform different functions. The screw has a vertical section in the screw pitch that momentarily halts the container in its forward motion. It is useful for such actions as banding, sleeving, in-line filling, closing, plugging or video inspection of various packaging operations. Screw design can vary the number of dwells and the degree of dwell time over wide limits to suit packaging requirements.
-
Grouping.
When multiple containers must be collated into a grouping, this design performs the operation smoothly by picking up two or more containers in a single pocket and then spacing the collation by a full pitch from the next group. This group of containers can then be discharged closely spaced to enable banding or over wrapping if needed.
Custom and Multiple Screw Configurations
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orienting or Twisting.
Orienting:This requires a custom-designed shape to enable precise positioning of oddly shaped containers that could normally travel in two positions but, with this screw design can be made to travel with either a point or a flat surface facing the screw.
Twisting: Usually performed on round containers to accomplish air cleaning, bottle washing, bottom coding, labeling or cartoning. Using specially shaped guide rails in conjunction with the timing screw, a vertical container can be twisted from an upright position with the opening at the top to a inverted position with the opening at the bottom. A container can be taken from a vertical to a horizontal position to run from along side to on top of the timing screw.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Combining.
A particularly useful design when the output of two lines is needed to be made into one. Some examples are when two unscramblers are needed to supply a single packaging line, the merging of two products into combination packages or the merging of two lines into one or more packaging operations. This design is accomplished by pairing two screws of the same configuration, allowing two lines of containers to be merged into one.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Turning.
This Configuration utilizes a pair of equal length or staggered length screws also known as rotational orienting or turn-around designs. They can orient containers in any required axial position between 0-degrees and 360-degrees.
Used for turning of containers in group fillers to occupy less space, this design enables filling spouts to be grouped on shorter centers. This same action can be used to assist in labeling operations. It can also turn containers between such operations as primary labeling and the attachment of secondary labels or literature.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Body and neck stabilizing
Timing screws can be mounted one above the other to increase the stability of tall and unstable bottles, particularly those with multiple cross sections such as a square body with a round neck.
For example, using a larger screw on the bottom and a smaller screw on the cap or neck area, both screws are kept running uniformly in pitch. Where the control becomes even more critical is in such functions as labeling, coding and video inspection.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shingling.
This function is performed by a pair of screws of different lengths with equal infeeds, that will offset a square or rectangular container.
Because of their sharp corners and little or no radius, square or rectangular containers must first be offset to enable a thread form to better separate, accelerate and control this type of container.
