Mallard's New Gravity Conveyor Tote-Flow Separator

While rear forces of small products or totes on roller conveyor may not seem obvious to some, they can be a serious challenge in picking, assembly and manufacturing operations. Mallard's new tote-flow hold-back separator removes this pressure allowing for safe, efficient order selection from the front pick position. Check it out!
For more information on gravity conveyor products: https://www.mallardmfg.com/gravity-conveyor-systems/
Contact the Mallard gravity flow specialists for design ideas: https://www.mallardmfg.com/contact-us/
Check out the complete test blog: https://www.mallardmfg.com/gravity-conveyor/forces-of-gravity-contained-with-new-pneumatic-separator/
Read the full blog here:
Forces of Gravity Contained with NEW Pneumatic Separator

We are all about solving material handling challenges here at Mallard and while back pressure of bins or totes on gravity conveyor may not seem obvious to some, it can be a serious challenge in picking, assembly and manufacturing operations. Taking a page from the Ergo technology used in our Ergo cell pallet flow separators, we have designed a pneumatic device for separating totes or product in deep-lane 1.9” roller conveyor configurations.

As you can see from our test video, the roller conveyor is equipped with button-controlled pneumatic separators that isolate the front position but also separates the last item in the charge position from the rest of the totes on the conveyor. This dual separation provides a unique scenario where not only the pick position is safer and easier to access but the load position is as well.

A fail-safe is built into the device that locks the separators in position when no air is being forced into the pneumatic controls. In the fail-safe position, totes or product remain separated at both the charge and discharge locations of the lane. When the system is released the totes index gently down lane until the pick face is replenished. The load-side separator is fixed at that point to be able to accept an item into the lane without causing additional pressures in the lower part of the lane.

When we say the back pressure can be a challenge, what are we talking about? Well, for example, a recent deep-lane roller conveyor configuration for an energy product customer called for between 10-20 tote positions… for totes weighing upwards of 110 lbs. each.

Example:
10 Totes @ 110 lbs. each = 1100 lbs.
20 totes @ 110 lbs. each = 2200 lbs.

Installing the pneumatic separator removes those forces with the simple push of a button and takes with it the difficulty and danger of picking a heavy item and not having it come cleanly off the rack.

Advantages of Roller Conveyor Separator:
• Removes dangerous back pressure from pick face
• Facilitates fast, safe, easy each picking from tote
• Accommodates robot or crane picks – each & full tote picks
• Pneumatic controls simple and safe to operate
• Reduces worker injuries
• Extremely economical solution vs. powered conveyor

Applications:
• Each-pick from totes/cartons
• Full tote/carton picks
• Parts assembly operations
• AS/RS crane applications
• Assembly
• Line-side manufacturing lines

Видео Mallard's New Gravity Conveyor Tote-Flow Separator канала Mallard Manufacturing