How do Powder Filling Machines Work?

With the growing popularity of powdered baby food, spices and beverages, the demand for powdered packaging or packaging machines is also on the rise. New powder packaging businesses are also emerging to keep up with the trend. Having a good understanding of the basic aspects of packaging can ensure the success of your business.

 

What is a Powder Filling Machine?

A powder filling machine is used in the effective filling of a wide range of powder products may they be free-flowing or non-free-flowing.

Cohesive powders, such as table salt, are called free-flowing and will not compress and maintain their shape even when you apply pressure to them. Meanwhile, you can compress non-free-flowing powders, like milk powders, because they are non-cohesive and they will retain their shape when you manipulate their particles.

Powder filler machines come in different automation levels and machine designs. The type of machine you will need will depend on whether you want to quantitatively or volumetrically fill your powder product or whether you are handling free-flowing or non-free-flowing powders. Not all powder fillers can handle both types of powders.

 

Components of Powder Filling Machines

To help you better understand how powder filling machines work, let us discuss the 6 major components of these machines first below.

1. Hopper

The hopper holds bulk quantities of your powder product before they are dispensed into the containers.

2. Filling Heads

The filling head is installed below the hopper and dispenses the powder product into the waiting containers.

3. Mechanical Drive System

This drives the moving components of the powder filler. It includes mechanical motors, gears, and conveyors.

4. Sensors

Sensors make sure that the containers are accurately filled by ensuring that they are positioned properly below the filling heads. If the sensors do not detect the presence of a container, the machine will stop dispensing the product.

5. PLC Control System

This is where the operator controls the settings of the whole filling process including the parameters. Some machines will come with touch screen control panels.

6. Measuring Cup or Weigher

To ensure that the containers are filled with precise amounts of the powder product, a powder filler will be equipped with a measuring cup or a weigher.

 

How Does a Powder Filling Machine Work?

How a powder filler works will depend on the machine’s automation level.

 

Manual Powder Filling Machines

Manual powder filling machines work similarly to semi-automatic powder fillers. These are small powder filling machines that do not require a power source and are only used for very small production demands.

 

 

Automatic Powder Filling Machines

Automatic powder fillers are equipped with the latest technologies to provide packagers a more efficient, robust, and cost-effective packaging machine. The points below summarize how these machines work:

● The operator supplies bulk amounts of the powder product into the hopper and feeds the machine with empty containers.

●  The conveyor directs the empty containers and positions them below the filling head.

●  The machine measures/weighs the powder product to be dispensed into each container.

●  The filling head dispenses consistent amounts of the powder product into each container.

●  The filled containers proceed to the sealing station where the powder sealing machine seals them.