Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ 23rd September 2019, 11:56 AMIt's what I do for a living Herc.
I watch the channel too - but I look at the controls and identify them and of course think - I'd have done that different.FYI and it probably won't mean a damn thing to you:
As the bottles come out of the capper machine a sensor checks whether they have a cap on and another checks they are filled to the correct height.
The answer is put into a 'bit shift' with either a 1 or a 0 (1 = ok 0 = not ok)
Yes, very interesting but what I am fascinated by is the mechanics of it all. Where do you start to build a such complicated machine to cut, fold, insert, shove, poke, glue, package in quantity, etc, etc. You can get a flavour of this on the Inside the Factory series on the Beeb, if you can put up with Gregg Wallace.
The tomato scanner reminds me of the claim Heinz made in one of their TV ads. back in the mid-60s that they scanned EVERY baked bean, which I scoffed at; BUT fast forward to the late 60s and I actually went to work for them as a sales rep and in the two week training period at their HO in Hayes we had a visit to the factory at Harlesden and blow me down - we were shown that machine which was scanning every bean and blowing the ones not right off with a puff of air, AND at such high speed you could only just see it doing it. And speaking of Inside the Factory they did go to the Harlesden factory and had a similar machine, but this time (as with your tomato one) it scanned the beans in multiples.
So these high-speed scanning checkers are nothing new - incredible technology, which I find fascinating.