Application
Packaging machinery
Sealing temperature, film tension and registration in one recipe — so a line change is a screen change, not a mechanical reset.
The machine
Form-fill-seal, cartoning and labelling lines
A form-fill-seal machine is four control problems behind one screen: sealing temperature that must not drift, film tension that must not stretch, a registration mark that must land in the same place every cycle, and a knife that must cut between packs at 60 to 120 packs a minute.
Then the line changes: a different film, a different bag length, a different fill weight. Every one of those is a parameter set, and every parameter set is a recipe. The panel is where the operator lives, so the recipe has to load in one action and the alarm has to say which of the four problems occurred.
The control
What has to happen, and fast enough
Four pulsed axes at 200 kHz cover film feed, sealing jaw, cross-seal and knife. A 200 kHz high-speed counter reads the registration mark, and the controller corrects the film length in the same scan. Sealing temperature runs on a PT100 or thermocouple channel at 16-bit, with PID in the PLC rather than in a separate temperature controller — one less device to wire and calibrate.
The panel carries the recipe groups (one per SKU), the alarm history and the production counter. If the line is one of several at the same site, an IoT panel gives the maintenance team the same screen remotely.
Recommended hardware
A typical bill of materials for this machine
These are the models the export desk quotes most often for this application — not the only valid combination.
| Function | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Operator panel | SK-070QS or SK-102QS | 7 or 10.2-inch, Ethernet, recipe groups, alarm history |
| Controller | FAs-32MT-AC-E | 16 DI / 16 DO, four 200 kHz pulse axes, Ethernet for MES |
| Film and seal axes | R8-2208P-N + HK-60 flange | 750 W class, 17-bit absolute, pulse command |
| Temperature | S-E4TC4T or S-E4PT4T | Four 16-bit channels plus four digital outputs |
I/O counts and axis counts assume a mid-range machine. Send the actual list and the quotation will be sized against it.
Engineering notes
What usually goes wrong
- Use recipe groups in the panel rather than writing values from the PLC: the operator changes SKU on the screen, the panel writes the block.
- Registration correction belongs in the controller, not the drive — the drive sees one axis, the controller sees the relationship between film length and cut.
- Log sealing temperature with the alarm history; a seal failure claim is much easier to answer with a trend than a memory.
- If the machine will ship to a washdown room, specify the IP67 panel and stainless hardware at the quotation stage — retrofitting a seal is a new door.
Send the machine, not the model
Describe the axes, the I/O and the market it ships to. We answer with a model code, a cut-out check and a landed-cost quote — usually within one business day.
Next step
Tell us what the machine has to do.
Send the axis count, the I/O list or a photo of the existing panel. You get a model recommendation, a wiring note and a quote — usually within one business day.