This morning I got a call from our production team that started out with “You’re gonna want to see this.” That kind of call can go one of two ways. When I got out there, what I found was definitely on the “good” end of that spectrum.

The conveyor they showed me was one that’s getting ready to ship. It’s an accumulating conveyor for one of our OEM partners that’s received several enhancements from our engineering team.

It’s a mostly-standard AS40 Automation Series conveyor. Lane dividers have been added to help guide the product to the drive end of the conveyor, where a special UHMW “nest” was been placed. It’s designed to fit the product perfectly and holds it in place until a robot can pick it up and move it on to the next step of the operation; other pieces accumulate behind it. An extra bar has been added between the lane dividers that keeps the product from stacking up vertically while it’s accumulating.

This is the kind of “special” our engineering team handles on a regular basis, since many of the projects we work on have some sort of complexity that needs a little more than is available from a completely standard conveyor.

Today we shipped a set of AS65 conveyors that contained two unique modifications from our specials engineering department: a cutout in the frame and a gang drive system. Our customer requested the cutout to allow a robot arm to pass under the conveyor; even our normal low profile wasn’t enough in this case. Our specials engineering team added a set of idlers on either side of the cutout to raise the belt tight against the frame.

The gang drive allows the two conveyors to operate using a single drive, and ensures that their indexing is synchronized. The part being conveyed straddles the top of both conveyors. A shaft (under the slotted guard) transfers power from the motorized conveyor to the non-motorized one.

We welcome special applications like this, and have a team of specials engineers dedicated to finding the right solution for any application.

This is the first video we’ve put together in HD, so let us know what you think.

Low profile conveyors are often referred to as “mini conveyors”, but this conveyor we’re shipping today gives the concept a whole new meaning. At 13″ long, 4″ wide and 1.89″ high, it’s one of the smallest conveyors we’ve ever shipped — especially to South Korea.  소형 컨베이어 미국에서 만드는

CO2 Air Inc. offers a new RF-1800HD press which is capable of making 1800 pounds per hour of one pound 5” x 5” x 3/4” ice blocks (the standard size piece). The press is designed to make up to 6 pieces per stroke. They were kind enough to mention that the QC Industries conveyors have been working very nicely where our competitors had failed.

“We love how the QC Industries conveyors hold up. They are a high quality conveyor and the InnerDrive system is simple to use and keeps the entire conveyor low profile, not just the frame area,” said Gabriel Perez of Xtreme Steam in Atlanta, Georgia.

We had a chance to catch up with Gabriel last week at West Pack. Xtreme Steam (and QC Industries) will be exhibiting at South Pack in Charlotte, March 19th and 20th.

In Gabriel’s demo he dumps chocolate and ketchup on the conveyor and the steam cleaning system cleans it away leaving the conveyor belt nice and dry. If you ever see Xtreme Steam at a show, take a minute to watch the demonstration; he does a great job. You’ll probably agree with me that this guy needs his own infomercial!

We love seeing video of our conveyors in action. If you have videos you’d be willing to share, drop me a line at cthompson at qcindustries dot com.

The inspection stations were designed by distributor Gem Automation to visually inspect automotive frame rails for improperly inserted nuts and bolts. The bad parts are pushed off the line into a locked box for later disposal. The stations can be moved quickly from press to press and configured to detect a wide variety of parts and features.

“Working with QC and Gem, we developed a conveyor arrangement that allows the parts to come out of the die in somewhat of an orderly fashion,” says Jim Szymanowski, Tella Tool’s sensor specialist. “Orienting the parts in a predictable way, to ensure that the key features fall repeatedly within the field of view of the vision system, was critical to preventing any bad parts from slipping through the system, and it proved quite challenging. But we were able to get where we needed to be.”