VALIDA, THE TABLET-COUNTER WITH A NEW COUNTING AND CONTROL SYSTEM

The tablet-counter Valida showcased at Interpack has a new counting and control system called Multivision. This patented system consists of:

• 4 cameras, which, from above, ensure the tablets in the channels are the right shape and colour;
• 1 laser triangulation camera installed transversally that checks tablet height, possibly rejecting tablets that are too small;
• Photocells that ensure non-compliant tablets are rejected.

The software program developed specifically by the Marchesini Group controls the entire system: it simultaneously counts the tablets, checks their wholeness within a mean tolerance of 20% and recognizes anything that shouldn’t be there.

The infeed speed of the machine is roughly 3000 pills a minute.

 

Special focus

Valida can be used as a pre-feeder
The Valida project started off as an evolution of an electronic tablet counter, but it is also perfect as a pre-feeder on a blister line such as Integra.

Valida is able to recognise the thickness and consequently eliminate even pills that are split exactly in half, with one side completely intact, but the other partially or totally missing. In such conditions, a conventional camera that detects the product just from the top would not notice this error.

The possibility to reject single tablets is of great help to enhance the OEE of blister lines, by reducing rejections of entire blisters because of product quality. Thanks therefore to the Valida pre-feeder, there is no product or packaging material wastage, because this mechanism substantially rejects just single pills so that they are not let into the blister filling system.

Once the product has been confirmed, some barrier sensors situated in the channels where the pills fall, “double check” that each tablet is actually infed or rejected.

As a “counter” unit, Valida counts with two different systems, merging the result of each one, just to validate the count. The group of cameras will count just compliant tablets that “pass”  the check. The group of sensors will do the same and, only if the first target is confirmed by the second one, the count can be considered to be “validated”.