Pneumatic Bottle Capper

[Tony]

Hi All

Ducatiboy Stu and i were having a beer or 2 the other weekend and we got talking on how we could cap lots of bottles a bit easier.

The thought of hand capping all those hundreds of stubs was giving him blisters just thinking about it.

I Came up with the idea of mounting a capping bell onto a small pneumatic ram. I thought i could hook it up with a push button that operates a solenoid to push the ram down. I was worried about a high speed ram breaking bottles so an adjustable SMC flow restrictor was put in line with it to slowly feed air to the ram on its way down.

I put a preasure switch on it so i can set the required preassure to cap the bottles and then the ram will automaticly retract all by its self.

I have built the top half of the capper and am currently making an adjustable base, all out of stainless of course

So operation is simple. Sit the bottle underneath with a cap on the top. Push the button and it will come down slowly and build preassure gradually to the preset level then it will retract at full speed by its self

A few of the boys at work that are into brewing are keen to se if this beast is going to work, i sure hope it does :unsure:

I will update pics as i make progress and will try to pick a less busy background for photos in furure. My old tool box makes it hard to se detail, sorry.

cheers all

tony the mad inventer :super:

 

[peas_and_corn]

how would you ensure the height is right? with my hand one, I pull it down all the way to see where the bell is in relation to the top of the stubbie.

 

[Tony]

bottle height doesnt matter.

The ram has 100mm of travel and i have made it to cap anything from a small stubby to a king brown.

It travels down till it meets the top of the bottle and then it starts building preasure in the ram, which pushes the cap on.

It will take a certan amount of preasure to crimp the cap over and you set the preassure switch to stop it pushing down when this is reached.

easy

cheers

 

[peas_and_corn]

ahh, it all makes sense now! takes a lot of the hassle out of capping right there alone

 

[Doc]

Fantastic Tony.
I love nothing more than taking something that is simple (ie. manual and boring) and over engineering it (ie. making it geeky).
You should submit it to BYO magazine as a reader project when it is all complete.

Top work.

Beers,
Doc

 

[JasonY]

If it can load the bottle caps automatically and have a foot pedal to operate it then it will be the ducks guts! Single handed operation

 

[Jye]

have a foot pedal to operate it

Go for a pressure pad where the bottles sit

 

[Doc]

and a Red flashing light (that lights up when it is capping)
One like this.


Beers,
Doc

 

[Lukes]

Great idea.

I started to make one out of an old paint tin lid press from a paint mixing machine but ended up converting it into a die cutting press.

I got the idea from St pats in Texas.

Check it out.
St Pats

Must watch the Video.

Luke

 

[Rex]

That looks very cool... If you could work out a way to load the caps automatically, then it would be even easier!

 

[mika]

At least with my little capper, you have to have the bottle "just so", if it's a bit off line the cap goes on crooked and doesn't seal properly. I presume you'll have a centering die to hold the bottle central to it all ?

 

[Scotty]

That is a great idea, when i first started brewing i had no idea how much stuff i would have to design and construct related to brewing.

I cant stop building stuff!!! Im sure everyone has the same problem as me, lol.

 

[Tony]

yeah it will have an adjustable guide on the bottom to hold the bottles in place.

I was thinking of putting a micro switch on it so when you push a bottle into the guide the ram comes down by its self.

Actually now that i think of it, the guide will be a 90 deg V shape that slides back and forth so it can be adjusted for any sive bottle. I might put 2 limit switches on it, one on either side to ensure that the bottle has to be in the right position to come down.

And now i wont sleep tonight :angry:

I am going to have to work out how to load the caps automaticly

ahhhhhhhh this is getting out of hand .

Im not to sure of the red flashing light though Doc, i kind of like a strobe better. Would certanly keep you awake during extended capping sesions

The push button lights up but its not as bright :huh:

cheers

tony

 

[tangent]

i've used one of these and after 2 minutes i was sick of the noise from the compressor and still thought hand capping was almost twice as quick.

my bottleneck (a pun but very apt) in bottling is filling.

what pressures are you running and how long from activation to release?

 

[Tony]

it isnt finnished yet mate

will let you know.

Im not trying to build the better mouse trap here, its just something that was thought up and i thought,

"hey that would be something cool to try and build"

Its not so much the time it saves and i agree hand capping would probably be as quick but the ease of operation is what im after.

And as for the compressor, put it outside and run an air hose in.

would cost about $10 for 20 meters of air line.

cheers

 

[johnno]

Thats brilliant.

 

[barfridge]

If you're having flashing lights, you need a klaxon to go with it.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Regardless of how quick it is to hand cap....when you have to do batches of 500-600 bottles on a weekly basis anything mechanical has to help...




I will still have to place the caps on by hand unfortunatly...but maybe somesort of conveyer belt can be set up...


Tony...If/when I ever make any money from this Micro and I expand, you will have a job as chief gadget maker...

 

[redbeard]

perhaps u can have 2 machines. while placing a cap & bottle in one, the other is capping. have a magnet on the capper to hold it. depends on how automated u want it.

 

[PhilS]

A Top notch project Tony. Would love to see the video of it in operation once you have finished it