Static electricity on bagmaking machinery – a problem and a help
Bag making machines come in various configurations based on the type of bags produced by the machine. The bag making machine produces a bag by unwinding a roll of plastic film through a series of operations like (heat) sealing, cutting, slitting & stacking. Typical products are garbage bags, T-shirt bags, shopping bags and bags with a draw-tape.
Bagmaking machinery creates a lot of static electricity. Because of the construction of the machinery, the rollers create friction between the roller material and the plastic foil that is passing. This friction creates electrostatic charges on the surface of the material (bags).
These electrostatic charges can cause the machine run poorly, making bad stacks so decreasing production yields and increasing rejects. These kind of problems are recognizable on most types of bagmaking machinery such as Bags-on-Roll (interleaf) and Bag-on-Bag (for instance with a wicketer). These machines can be found in multiple industries like general packaging, food, beverage and medical.
Static Elimination
To neutralise electrostatic charges on bagmaking machines, Simco-Ion offers a complete program of static eliminating products. Often applied are the AC static eliminators MEB, MaxION or the ½” Super Service bars (made of Teflon so applicable at the sealing unit: heat resistant). Additionally 24V static eliminators are used such as the Performax IQ Easy (speed), VicinION or ThunderION 2.0 IQ. These are both long range discharging bars, so eliminating the electrostatic charges responsible for stacking problems, especially needed on wicketer machinery.
Generating Static
Less well known is the fact that static electricity is used to support a variety of processes, especially on bag making machines. It is applied for charging a roll, in example of garbage bags, to prevent air inclusion, further disturbances in the process and keep the roll compact. Also sticking material to a metal roller, without air inclusion, optimizes the cooling process.
Charging of the last bag of a roll, fixes the end of the roll and facilitates the following packing much easier into an outer carton. In many processes static charge is applied to improve production control by charging the bottom and/or side fold of the material or to assist during transport and stacking in the machine.
Perforation Detection
The controlled generation of sparks is also used to detect perforations (pinholes), for quality inspection purposes.
Besides the fact that this is an interesting solution for non-contact inspection of product quality, there is also the possibility to count the number of perforations (also for biodegradable bags).
This production technique is made possible by Simco-Ion high voltage generators, that are especially designed for this applications. With a high voltage static generator like the Simco CM5 generator or a Simco 24V Perfomaster the spark can be controlled and converted to a signal that is passed on the machine PLC. This data informs the PLC, so operators knows if a product has a defect, if it is in the right position or the number of products which have been produced.
These Simco-Ion charging and discharging techniques result in high quality, competitive bagmaking!
Commonly Used Products
ThunderION
It offers long distance static elimination even up to one meter. The robust design of the reinforced extruded profile allows the use in industrial environment up to even 5 m length. The T-ridge on the backside of the ThunderION enables the user to position the Simco-Ion universal mounting brackets as desired, allowing optimal mounting flexibility. The disc shaped emitters differ from the conventional emitters. They produce a high and balanced ion output. The emitters are shockless when accidently touched. A flexible and replaceable structure prevents damage to the emitters when hit by foreign objects. The ThunderION has an integrated high voltage power supply and requires only a low voltage input of 24V DC. The new concept for long range static neutralisation is achieved with a combination of pulsed DC and a low frequency. LED’s on four sides visualise bar ON or bar ALARM.
The totally new designed housing makes it very easy to clean the ThunderION. End brackets, middle support brackets, side plates and emitters can be easily removed to gain access to the whole surface for fast and accurate cleaning.
With certain production processes its necessary to neutralise static electricity at a very long distance, for example winding and rewinding of webs where the diameter of the re-windingsection changes continuously. With the ThunderION a new technique is being used were long range neutralisation is possible without air support as transport medium for the ions.
Perfomaster
The Perfomaster provides the hardware and software to generate a controlled spark over, detect this and evaluate the spark over to produce a pulse signal. The pulse signal is available on the output connector and can be used for counting the detected spark-overs and thus perforations.
The miniaturised design of the Perfomaster contains the electrode as well as the high voltage source. It is powered by 24 V DC, so no high voltage cable is required. Electrodes are standard fitted with three special alloy emitter pins and are detachable for replacement or remote placement.
CM5-60
CM5 is fully backwards compatible with ECM30/60 and ECM DI30/60. For basic users a quick set-up menu is provided to set-up the generator to function as an ECM30/60. The Menu is available in English, German, French and Italian.
The new standard function Current Control will enable you to set a constant current vs a constant voltage. This will provide a much more stable charging and will compensate contamination and emitter pin wear automatically. Advanced Current Control is a revolutionary new feature. The generator keeps track of the supplied current to the electrode. It senses when there is no material to be charged and switches the current to a safe low level. This prevents sparkover and emitter pin wear. When material is reinserted the current will switch back to the high level current.
A serial bus interface can be fitted additionally to enable the generator to communicate through serial bus interfaces s.a. Profibus or CANopen (Other serial protocol available on request). Advanced Output Control is optionally available for specific applications. This function provides output control that is proportional to an input signal. F.e. the level of charging can be proportional to the speed of the machine.
HDR Charging Bar
The HDR charging bar suits high velocity applications. Each individual point being fitted with a resistor, so the chance of spark-over is strongly reduced.
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