A supplier of inspection and rejection systems for the food and beverage industry, Teledyne TapTone introduced a new Seal Integrity Tester (SIT) designed to inspect cups inside the cup filler. Consisting of multiple sensors mounted inside the cup filling system, the SIT inspects each cup by compressing the sensor head to the foil lid of the cup at full production machine speeds of at least 200 milliseconds and higher, the company says. The sensors monitor the lid deflection during the compression cycle and the digital signal processor board calculates the inspection merit values to accept or to reject containers with defective seals that fall outside user set merit value limits. The system can detect bad seals caused by the product during filling, deformed or damaged foil lids that cannot make a good seal, and weak seals that can be caused by out of range heater temperatures. Using state-of-the-art DSP processor technology, the patented SIT sensor incorporates a PC user interface that graphically displays “good” non-leaking cups in green and “bad” leaking cups in red. Minimum leak detection specifications for the SIT system range from 0.006-0.008 inches (150-200 microns) with multiple inspection algorithms capable of not only seal integrity but also gross leaks and missing foil detection. The SIT system can integrate into an existing filler PLC using Ethernet Modbus TCP/IP or Ethernet IP.

Teledyne TapTone, 49 Edgerton Drive, North Falmouth, Mass. 02556 ; 508/563-1000; taptone.com.