LINX lasers for coding and marking
With the huge growth in boutique beer houses and the expansion of non-alcoholic beverages there is increased demand for traceable coding on products. Beverage producers can be assured that the most permanent mark is achieved by coding onto PET bottles, cans and glass bottles.
A start-up beer house in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Edinburgh Beer Factor, is currently using an Linx CSL30 on its bottling line, to code ’best before’ dates and batch codes. The automatic bottling line processes around 2,000 300ml bottles of beer per hour! Even with this high-speed production, clear, high quality legible codes are marked on every bottle.
Linx laser coders are proven in the beverage sector to deliver consistent, reliable coding and marking on anything you can put a beverage in, with models offering consistent high-quality codes at speeds to suit your production requirements. Linx lasers are designed to deliver permanent traceable quality print to meet legislative requirements and to protect your brand. A lasers system installed on a bottling line provides a long reliable life and does not require consumables!
At Raymax, we understand the importance of ensuring that your products comply with coding and marking regulations within your industry. Raymax engineers can provide expert advice on the laser system that best meets your production needs in terms of line speed and positioning. We offer free training with all installations. So if you are considering upgrading your current coding hardware you might consider a Linx laser for long term performance and great ROI.
Wear protection for blades on agricultural machinery
Machinery used in farming, especially cutting and harvesting, are exposed to heavy stress and subject to wear. It is possible to increase the service life of blades, that can extend usability beyond normal product life and provide a cheaper and more convenient option than replacement.
Coating technology is used extensively with repairs to large equipment such as equipment used in mining, earthmoving, maritime, large spindles, rotors, and so on. Across Australia workshops house Laseline lasers being used for cladding operations to repair worn parts, extending the life of the part and often avoiding long wait times for a replacement.
Coating agricultural blades is not a new innovation: In the past, service life has been increased by using wear protection coatings. However, thermal spray and arc welding processes used for this purpose have disadvantages in terms of efficiency and energy input. Thermal spray coatings are comparatively costly, arc welding generates high energy inputs that risk of deformation of the component, especially along the cut edges. These disadvantages are not found with laser cladding. The laser serves as a heat source: It creates a molten pool on the surface of the blade into which the coating material is applied as powder or wire - usually a hard metal such as tungsten carbide. Accurate molten pools with low degrees of dilution, keep the thermal load low. The coatings produced are fusion-metallurgically bonded to the blade surface and are therefore very stable so that they can withstand even hard blows and bumps.
The advantages of laser-coated agricultural machinery blades are exemplified by a roller from Meyer Agrartechnik equipped with Jäkel’s JADU®-Stratum reversible knives. The blades feature a wave-shape on both long sides and are coated with a diode laser-based carbide coating on the rear side. The front side, however, which comes into contact with the soil or plants, remains uncoated. This coating approach leads to a self-sharpening effect: During field work, the softer base material on the front side is abrasively removed, while the harder coating on the back side remains and becomes the blade. The service life is accordingly more than doubled, and the quite higher acquisition costs are quickly amortized.
This is just one example of cladding equipment used in agriculture to extend part life.
