Cre-8-It, located in Minneapolis, MN, is a fresh food manufacturer. They had two old Hardy Indicators that worked in conjunction with a PLC to control their two-lane, two-speed filling operation. Ben Bourgin, their maintenance manager, called us-his machine was down with no parts or support available. Weigh-Rite Scale came to the rescue.

Our Engineering staff met with Cre-8-It to find out what they wanted in a new controller. We designed and wrote a custom program for the Weigh-Tronix Model 1310 which can control or monitor 64 inputs or outputs. Using this indicator, we eliminated the PLC altogether and had them running in less than a week. After a few minor program changes done on-site, Ben says the system is faster, more user friendly and more accurate than their old system. Bob Goldetsky, the owner, was ecstatic about the performance and the timely installation.

Whether you have a vibrator, belt, auger or gravity feed system we have upgraded them all using the Weigh-Tronix Model 1310.

Recycling Questions:
• Truck Number
• Incoming / Outgoing
• Material
• Account / Customers

Highway Questions:
• Truck Number
• In / Out
• Material
• Job Number
• Segment Number
• Account / Customer

All information listed above will be printed along with a time and date stamp. The information is also sent to a computer via RF for data collection. We have a software program collecting the data in two spread sheets, one for highway and one for recycling. The highway department spread sheet is automatically sent to the highway office 15 miles away via the internet every night. the recycling one is used on site. This scale had two functions and they can keep them separate using the system with case.

Function:
To Ensure all components are in the box before it is shipped to the customer.

Overview:
This system consists of (3) powered conveyors, light tower, Weigh-legs, 1310, label printer, applicator and 2 bar code scanners.

Operation:
An operator fills an order and puts the listed components in the box. He then places the box on the infeed conveyor. The box moves by the first scanner and it sends the part number to the 1310 which looks it up in its data base to find the acceptable weight and tolerances. It then proceeds down to the weigh-leg conveyor to get a weight. If the weight is acceptable it sends the weight to the UPS Clippership program and it sends all the information to the label printer, which prints and applies the shipping label. The box continues down the last conveyor and goes by the second bar code scanner to ensure the printer applicator did its function okay and the bar code is readable. There are 3 faults that can happen: no read on the scanners, not correct weight or printer/applicator problem.

If the 1310 detects a fault it will shut down the line. If the weight is not correct the 1310 will display what part is missing. If the scanner or printer/applicator has a problem the 1310 will display which component had the fault. This company has 3 lines like this and all machines have quick disconnects on them so if one machine malfunctions you can unplug the machine and put another one in its place with no tools required.

An amazing addition to the Weigh-Tronix product line was introduced in the last five years. It’s called the WI-130 . It took a little while for our customers to learn the full potential of this great instrument but once they did, the WI-130 has been used for all types of applications. The WI-130 is a fully programmable digital weight indicator and so much more. Here are some of the things our customers are saying about their WI-130 digital weight indicator. "This is the answer to all my needs." "I can’t believe how this will help my process." "I have so many uses for this in my plant." "This is my best friend." "I don’t need a PLC now to control my process when this can do that too." "This will keep my formulas and set points for all my batching in memory for easy recall."

This digital weight indicator has so many more uses than conventional weight indicators. It can double as a PLC which can control up to 32 inputs or outputs. It also can be used to print out tickets, reports or communicate with a computer.

You are limited only by our imagination with what this great indicator can do. We, at Weigh-Rite Scale, have two full-time programmers just to keep up with the vast attention this has brought to the scale industry. It is hard to believe all these features are on a digital weight indicator.

• 1" high 4.3" wide vacuum fluorescent display with 4 lines of text available
• Analog to digital rate of 60 times per second
• Units of measure: kilograms, grams, pounds and ounces and 2 custom units available
• Capacity to 10,000,000 lb. Selectable Incremental selections, multiple and sub-multiples of 1,2,5
• Displayed resolutions to 1 part in 10,000,000
• Audio tone for alarm or key contact assurance
• Time and date with battery back up
• Internal resolution 1,000,000 counts analog. Harmonizer Digital Filtering fully programmable to ignore noise and vibration
• 2] RS-232 485 Communication ports. Two set points for cutoffs or lights, with option cards expandable to 32.
• Stainless Steel NEMA 4X washdown enclosure
• With option cards this indicator can read and control up to 4 scales simultaneously
• Alpha-numeric, pc style keyboard option
• Quartzell transducer interface

We will be happy to demonstrate this to you using the "Simposer" software that is on our laptop computers. This software, which can be purchased, is used to program, monitor, read, or download to the indicator. We have had great interest in this indicator that some of our customers have learned to program the WI-130 on their own. Weigh-Rite can also offer a 4-day school on programming the WI-130. It uses basic programming with a little extra added for the weighing industry. Please call Weigh-Rite Scale to get information first hand at 800-446-3689.

The local distributor suggested using the programmable WI-130 Indicator to improve their process control. The system they installed does three things for them.

And the benefit that pays them back the fastest is the system’s tighter controls over the correct ingredient ratios. They used to have a variance goal of less than 1% on ingredients. Now their variances are running close to 0.1%.

A standard indicator that fits any application in the plant means that operators and maintenance people only have one instrument to be familiar with. It means a huge reduction in spare parts stock. The benefits are pretty obvious.

The WI-130 is reprogrammable in minutes. It’s just a matter of a simple serial communication to its flash memory. So the WI-130 that has been operating as a checkweigher can change software and monitor flow rates in a sauce room or function as a batch controller or automate a filling system or gather for a download to SPC or Quality Assurance functions.

One of our distributors was asked to design an axle weighing system for a shipping operation with a serious bottle neck. Their existing single axle weighing system had to handle as many as 300 trucks in a twenty four hour period.

Because of the volume of traffic, the distributor specified a multi-platform scale system which produces all three axle weights in one weighment.

The system operates entirely unattended. A green traffic lights brings the truck onto the scale. The WI-130 displays all three axle weights plus a gross weight. It sends the weight data to a printer. The light turns green and drivers pick up weight tickets as they leave.

The customer reports that in busy periods of the day they can process on truck every 20 seconds. They estimate that their saving and labor paid for the system in three months.

The application uses a high resolution bench scale with a WI-130 Indicator at the end of each production line. The WI-130 displays a bar graph which lets operator know how close they are to the correct case count. The system shuts down automatically if a final count is incorrect.

The counting software also requires operators to re-sample the items regularly to assure the individual weights are within specification. If the operators skip the sampling routine, the system shuts down.

Plastic Injection Molding
A local plastic injection molder had a need to automate a molding process and collect 100% Q.C. data. The customer had determined that they could judge structural integrity by weight. The Weigh-Tronix WI-130 Weight Data Acquisition Controller was the perfect instrument for the job.

Two parts are molded each time the mold closes. When the mold opens, a robot removes the parts and moves them to a high precision bench top scale. THe WI-130 is programmed with a target weight, an acceptable over-weight, and an acceptable under-weight (all parameters are adjustable).

The WI-130 determines are in or out of tolerance. If out of tolerance, a reject devise will fire and push the parts into a small tote. If parts are acceptable, an accept device fires to push parts down to a slide. A heated take-away conveyor controls the cooling of the parts. The WI-130 will then advance the conveyor about 10'' and wait for the next acceptable parts.

There are 4 systems like this within the plant. In order to satisfy the Q.C. requirements, we were able to hook all 4 systems to one pc and record and chart the actual results, real time. displayed simultaneously on the monitor. Statistical information is available from the program that accept the data. The customer runs more than one part on each system, so the system was program to store 10 sets of Accept/Over/Undervalues.