Today’s installment: let’s talk about something that’s been around for a long time but is now at a whole new level. Many of you are familiar with X-ray density weighing or using your X-ray system to estimate how much something weighs. This is done for a few reasons:
- A lot of products are going too fast on a conveyor to weigh them so that it’s cost-effective
- You want to weigh individual components. With a mechanical scale, you get the whole weight. With an X-ray system, you can weigh individual components; and get that as an active part of your manufacturing process. So if you’re supposed to have a specific number of individual components (for example, a specific number of nuts, or a specific number of pickles), you’re confident that it’s in the container. You don’t end up with one component being twice as much as you need while the other is half as much.
High-resolution systems – our next advancement in X-ray systems – is a game-changer for this process.
With a traditional X-ray system, the best you could hope for in a density weight is about plus-or-minus 0.5 of a percent – that’s still very good. But with our high-resolution systems, we can get all the way down to plus-or-minus 1/10th of a percent!
So how does it work?
A neat thing about X-ray systems is they can find part of a product and evaluate it (instead of only being able to evaluate the holistic product). So when a product goes through an inspection line, the system is finding the individual components (the nuts AND the pickles). Then, the system uses a calibration weight curve that allows it to understand differences in image density.
This is great for many products because it gives an accurate range for weighing. And if the weight is extremely beyond the range, the system trips an alarm that tells you that the weight is out of the normal range it should be in.
This is all non-contact, and all extremely reliable. Our X-ray systems are automatically calibrating themselves and automatically checking themselves; they can validate that they’re working correctly on their own, with software built into the machine.
Imagine that you just have to put your product through, calibrate the system, and then know just how much the product weighs. We can do component weighing based on the area; or if you have different enough products, the machine can weigh each thing and count them.
Another reason that density-based weighing is so helpful: some containers vary in density. Think about a glass container – some are heavier or lighter. A mechanical processor weighs the entire container with the product inside; then empties and rinses it out; then weighs the container alone. What a laborious process! This is really only a sampling methodology.
With our density-based weighing, you can weigh every container with or without product for an accurate reading.
Hopefully, this gives you some insight into the power and capability of our systems. To learn more about our innovative company, please visit our website, LinkedIn, or YouTube channel. We look forward to working with you!
