During a meeting at their headquarters, The founders, Eng. Francesco Berrino, proudly showed us a machine intended for the U.S. market and briefed us on what solutions were used by the design team to make it safe.

The company’s specialization is the design and assembly of food processing and packaging machines.
These machines make the processing steps between the slicer and the thermoforming machine to handle, dose, overlap or roll slices of cheese, cold cuts, hams, hamburgers, and then place them in the tray or the thermoforming machine automatically.
They also make machines to pick, align, and place cheese or meat sticks; others to pick, dose by weight, and package slices of salami, cheese cubes, olives, taralli, and other foods.

Elcat designs and manufactures customized devices made specifically for the customer’s timely need, an activity that allows Elcat to differentiate itself from those who make mass-produced machines.

ReeR safety light curtains are used to stop the machine in the event that a person introduces a limb into the area where the hazardous work is being carried out while still maintaining unobstructed vision and the ability to intervene, which are limited when using physical guards. 


Removable guards also often have R-SAFE Reer safety sensors with RFID technology that certify their safe location.

The machines are made mainly of stainless steel and other materials suitable for use in the food and beverage industry.
Components must also be chosen from those suitable for food contact and capable of withstanding the thorough daily cleaning cycles that are carried out on food production machines.
For safety light curtains, the choice was made in favor of our EOS4s equipped with IP69K enclosures, the EOS4 WTFs (WaterTightFood).

EOS safety light curtains with WTF and WTHF (heated) housings allow use in environments exposed to water and steam jets with pressures up to 80bar and temperatures up to 80°C and in combination with the use of detergents and disinfectants.
The materials used to make the housing, such as stainless steel, Delrin and PMMI, are suitable for use in the food industry because they are inert and because they do not generate food contaminants.

All EOS safety light curtains can be used down to -25°, and thus in refrigerated environments, but the WTHF (heated) models feature a thermostat-controlled heating system that facilitates their elimination of condensation that might form on the transparent surface of the housing.

ReeR Solution

EOS safety light curtains IP69K enclosure

Food & Beverage industry approved

Cleaning plan for food and beverage industry

• Rinsing with water 40 – 50°C
  Rinsing with low pressure.
  Rinsing from top to bottom in the direction of the drains
• Cleaning of the drains
• Foaming from bottom to top
  Alkaline: P3-topax 66
  Acid: P3-topax 56
  Temperature: cold up to 40 °C
  Contact time: 15 min. recommended
• Rinsing with water 40 – 50°C
  Rinsing from top to bottom with low pressure
• Disinfection
  P3-topactive DES 1-3% 10-30 min.

 

It is interesting to note how physical guards have been incorporated with the aim of reducing unintentional line breaks (for example, interrupting the barrier with an arm or gown flap). The machine works harder and avoids stops and restarts, which must always be handled safely.

The ELCAT machines consist of several semi-independent modules, each performing a dedicated procedure.
All are equipped with numerous safety sensors (light curtains, door-opening sensors, emergency STOP) connected locally to remote I/Os of a single MOSAIC Safety controller. In this way each module can be separated from the others and for safety connects with a single cable.
MOSAIC makes it possible to intelligently evaluate received signals, for example, interrupting only one module and not the complete line with a continuous exchange of information with the PLC that manages machine automation.

Highly appreciated is the remote control mode that can be achieved with the Mosaic M1S COM.
M1S COM can be connected to an Ethernet network and then fully controlled through an Internet connection. 
This allows technicians to remotely intervene on machine settings, reprogramming and/or solving customer needs quickly and easily regardless of where the machine is physically installed.