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CEM 5-5-1 miniblock filler?

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  • #16
    Our filler is due to arrive a get commissioned in the first week of December. We had a few modifications made to our unit: levelling foot-pads and more notably an automatic in-feed and out-feed.

    We are making some adjustments to our labeller by fitting it with a photo sensor that will prevent bottles from being let through if there a too many waiting to be filled, as well as operating a tally counter so we know how much we've packaged.

    I will post comments and share some video when it's going.
    Last edited by kererubrewing; 11-12-2013, 10:53 AM.
    Regards,
    Chris Mills

    Kereru Brewing Company
    http://kererubrewing.co.nz

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    • #17
      And here it is in operation. Despite unforeseen delays which were beyond anyone's control it's in and working well. CEM went above and beyond in supplying both an interim filling solution free of charge as well as delivering their first fully automatic unit.

      Regards,
      Chris Mills

      Kereru Brewing Company
      http://kererubrewing.co.nz

      Comment


      • #18
        Thanks for posting the video.

        There seems to be long gaps in the rinser and capper functions.
        We can't see the filling portion so it it hard to judge what is happening but can the gaps be closed by adjusting speed?
        Are all fill heads always working and the gaps come from this (seems unlikely)?

        Thanks

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        • #19
          There are five filling stations which operate simultaneously. There is a pause while the just-filled bottles are rotated away to the capper and rinsed bottles are rotated in for the next filling cycle.

          The system needs to have a steady supply of bottles as the whole system will wait if there are fewer than 5 bottles at the in-feed, or if not enough caps are in the chute to the capper. The filling station is governed by a timing setting which has fixed settings for different sized bottles (shorter cycle time for smaller bottles and longer for larger). You can choose to use a different setting than the given bottles you are using so you can make it go a faster or slower to suit the condition of the beer being filled. So if there's excessive fobbing on a very gassy beer you can slow it down to the next size up, or if there's too little you can speed it up (330ml being the shortest filling cycle on ours).

          So you are correct - the bottles are filled in groups of five with a pause between sets. We are looking into the finer points of operation to see if we can reduce this to a minimum for higher throughput.

          We are also considering the addition of an accumulation table before the filler to accommodate continuous operation during label changes.
          Regards,
          Chris Mills

          Kereru Brewing Company
          http://kererubrewing.co.nz

          Comment


          • #20
            We bought one. Tried it for a while and traded up to a Cime Gold DPS 9-8-1 six months later. The CEM 5-5-1 is not a rotary filler and is driven by a series of separate electromechanical devices. The photocells which govern this were not waterproof and it took months of frustration to discover this simple fact. It worked fine once we kept the photocells dry, but by then I had found that the CEM 5-5-1 would never be fast enough; in a six hour shift we could only ever package 1,500 litres of beer (when it was operating perfectly), and we regularly package more than that during a bottling run.

            The CEM 5-5-1 seems a good size for breweries that don't need to package more than 1,200L in a shift. It can be operated by 1.5 people and as it is physically smaller and slower than the Cime 9-8-1 seemed a little more relaxing to operate. CEM 5-5-1 owners would benefit from fitting a vacuum gauge to observe the quality of vacuum provided as loose fittings can degrade this rather significantly.
            Regards,
            Chris Mills

            Kereru Brewing Company
            http://kererubrewing.co.nz

            Comment

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