Terminology:
- Slats: the plastic bars having cavities to pick up tablets for filling.
- 72 Slats are required on the machine.
- Dividers: separate the tablets that drop from the slat into each “Division”.
- Groups of tablets that enter each funnel.
- Funnel: Controls the group of tablets as they enter into each bottle.
- For large counts a funnel may collect tablets from 2 or more divisions
Typically on a 42 inch machine the slats will have 72 or 90 cavities per slat, depending on tablet size. This means the number of tablets that will drop per division is either 4 or 5 tablets. We call this either a 4 or 5 Drop Slat.
The following figure shows a 5 Drop Slat with an 18 Division Divider into a 9 UP Funnel filling 9 Bottles.
This means that with each slat 5 tablets x 2 divisions = 10 tablets per slat into 1 Bottle! If we run 10 Slats per Bottle there will be 100 tablets in each of the 9 Bottles.
Slat Patterns: (more terminology)
It is sometimes necessary to create ‘patterns’ of slats to achieve a certain tablet count not equally divisible by the number of tablets dropping into the bottle per slat. In these situations we may use ‘Partially Active’ slats that have some blank „lanes‟ without cavities. We may also need to use ‘Blank’ slats with no cavities at all to fill the machine with all 72 slat positions.
Some example set up scenarios.
Example#1: 100 count small tablets.
Example#2: 100 count Large tablets.
We will use a 5 Drop Slat with an 18 UP Funnel, filling 18 bottles.
100 / 5 = 20 Slats to run.
- On the SETUP Screen on the machine you will enter:
- Tablet Count = 100
- Total Slats = 20
- Blanks Slats = 0
- Bottles Up = 18
We will use a 4 Drop Slat with an 18 UP Funnel, filling 18 bottles.
100 / 4 = 25 Slats to run.
- On the SETUP Screen on the machine you will enter:
- Tablet Count = 100
- Total Slats = 25
- Blanks Slats = 0
- Bottles Up = 18
Example#3: 1000 count Large tablets.
Example#4: 500 count Small tablets.
We will use a 4 Drop Slat with a 9 UP Funnel, filling 9 bottles.
1000 / 8 = 125 Slats to run. (Remember we are combining 2 divisions into
each bottle.)
- On the SETUP Screen on the machine you will enter:
- Tablet Count = 1000
- Total Slats = 125
- Blanks Slats = 0
- Bottles Up = 9
We will use a 5 Drop Slat with a 9 UP Funnel, filling 9 bottles.
500 / 10 = 50 Slats to run. (Remember we are combining 2 divisions into
each bottle.)
- On the SETUP Screen on the machine you will enter:
- Tablet Count = 500
- Total Slats = 50
- Blanks Slats = 0
- Bottles Up = 9
Example#5: 500 count Large tablets.
Example#6: 90 count Large tablets.
We will use a 4 Drop Slat with a 9 UP Funnel, filling 9 bottles.
500 / 8 = 62.5 Slats to run. This requires a bit more explanation.
We will need 62 Active 4 drop slats, 1 partial active 2 drop and 9 blank
slats. The 9 blanks completes the machine requirement of 72 slats.
62 x 4 = 248 Active
+ 1 x 2 = 2 Partial Active
+ 9 x 0 = 0 Blanks
250 per division x 2 Divisions = 500 tablets into 9 bottles.
On the SETUP Screen on the machine you will enter:
- Tablet Count = 500
- Total Slats = 72
- Blanks Slats = 9
- Bottles Up = 9
The filler will run all 72 slats per cycle. When Blanks are greater than zero,
the bottles will begin to ‘Index’ out during the time the blanks are over the
dividers.
We will use a 4 Drop Slat with an 18 UP Funnel, filling 18 bottles.
90 / 8 = 22.5 Slats to run.
Again the .5 indicates that a partial slat will be necessary.
We will need 22 Active 4 drop slats, 1 partial active 2 drop (the .5) and 1
blank slat. This pattern of 24 slats repeats 3 times to fill the machine with
72 slats. (24 x 3 =72)
22 x 4 = 88 Active
+ 1 x 2 = 2 Partial Active
+ 1 x 0 = 1 Blank
90 per division x 1 Division = 90 tablets into 18 bottles.