Glass Container X-Ray Inspection System

The ScanTrac Trio features three side view x-ray beams to deliver industry leading glass container inspection. While Trio’s outer beams optimize inspection for foreign materials at container sidewalls and around the bottom “push up,” the third beam delivers precise fill level and height detection. Space efficient, Trio installs on single file production conveyors to make its non-contact inspection in less than three meters of space.

Outer Beams See Around Glass Walls and Push Ups By using three beams, we are able to inspect behind the push ups on jars. The illustration below demonstrates how a glass bead could hide in front or behind this region of a bottle. The high concentration of glass in this region would typically render the area worthless for inspection; however, as the illustration shows, what hides from one beam of the Trio lies in clear sight for another beam. Some glass shards and other foreign materials may be easier to detect from one angle vs. another. The Trio's three beams provide a statistically significant increase in probability of detecting foreign materials in your product.

Center Beam Inspects for Fill Level
The center beam of the Trio captures a head x-ray image of the container, allowing for precise fill level detection.

The difference in fill between the image shown above is less than 5 grams in an 8 ounce glass jar. The inspection area (dotted line rectangle bracketed by yellow dashed line) can be adjusted vertically and horizontally for optimal fill control.

Center Beam Inspects for Cap Presence
The cap inspection can be positioned precisely in this image from the center x-ray beam to provide accurate missing cap control.

The images above demonstrate Trio's ability to detect the presence (left image) or absence (right image) of a container's lid or cap.

Center Beam Allows for Inspection Despite Product Spacing Issues
For complete inspection of a glass jar using only two beams, the jars must be spaced. Even if the inspection is made after naturally separating systems such as labelers and cappers (or even when jars are transferred to an accelerated conveyor), the jars may move close to another jar and eliminate the required half diameter spacing.

When containers are inspected without adequate separation in a dual beam system (see red circle above), the images are combined, creating an “overlapped” image as shown above. This condition can be detected by the x-ray system but the inspection is incomplete. With only two images, the options the user has are just to either a) accept all overlaps, or b) reject all overlaps. With the Trio, an assured inspection is always provided.

Foreign Material Inspection
The ScanTrac Trio inspects glass bottles and jars for glass shards, metal fragments, bone, certain types of rubber, and stones.

Additional Inspection ScanTrac Systems can detect contaminants, components and voids while simultaneously determining density, fill level, and fill volume.

Versatility ScanTrac systems can accomodate a wide range of package sizes. Each unit features: adjustable X-Ray energy levels, digital arrays, proprietary algorithms and real-time imaging that can be configured for a broad range of applications.

Targeted Rejection Out-of-conformance, (damaged, dented or upside down containers), and contaminated containers are identified and diverted or rejected down-stream.

Intuitive User- Friendliness Rugged and easy-to-use, ScanTrac's intuitive systems feature Multiple Product Memories, On-Line Diagnostics, Auto-Calibration, Step-by-Step Set-Up menu, and Remote Monitoring for unmatched ease of installation, set-up and operation. Relatively inexperienced personnel achieve optimal inspections with minimal training.