Inspection index

Empty bottle inspection _________________________________________________ 3

Objective 3

The theory of empty bottle inspection _____________________________________ 4

Objective 4

The beer bottle 4

What are glass bottles and how are they made? 5

Bottle inspection areas 7

Foreign bottle detection 8

Mouth inspection 9

Base inspection 11

Sidewall inspection 13

Residual liquid inspection 15

Bottle rejection 15

Vital hint 16

Manufacturers of empty bottle inspectors _________________________________ 17

Operation and maintenance of empty bottle inspectors______________________ 19

Objective 19

Mechanical or electrical failure 19

Rejection of good bottles or non rejection of faulty bottles. 20

Theory of container contents inspection __________________________________ 22

Objective 22

Methods of container inspection_________________________________________ 25

Fill level inspection 25

Valve monitor 26

Missing crown detection 27

Label check inspection 27

Crate contents inspection 28

Peaked can detection 28

Rejection devices _____________________________________________________ 29

Objective 29

Hard rejecters 29

Soft rejecters 30

Finger type rejecter 30

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Rotary rejecter: 30

Sliding rejecter fingers 31

Page 2 of 36
Empty bottle inspection

Objective

to explain the principles of bottle inspection so that the learner will be able to:

Describe the process of empty bottle inspection.

Describe the different inspection areas and inspection methods.

Describe common defects and their affect on product quality.

Identify typical maintenance and cleaning techniques required on an empty bottle

inspector.

Identify some of the empty bottle inspectors produced by different machine

manufacturers.

Page 3 of 36
The theory of empty bottle inspection

Objective

to explain the theory of empty bottle inspection and the different parameters

The beer bottle

The Diagram below indicates the key parts of a typical bottle that we will be referring to in
this section.

Page 4 of 36
What are glass bottles and how are they made?
Glass bottles are usually available in clear, green or amber glass. Amber glass
filters out the ultra violet rays of sunlight and helps prevent the beer from
having a ‘sunstruck’ off-flavour. Beer in clear or green glass must never be
exposed to direct sunlight.

Bottles are manufactured from molten glass. The glass is melted in a furnace and fed
to the moulds. There is a double system of moulds to allow for the shape to be roughly
formed and then finished off.

Page 5 of 36
 A ‘gob’ of glass is dropped into the first mould as shown above. Air is blown into the
mould from the top to fit the ‘gob’ into the bottom of the mould. The counter blow, from
the bottom of the mould, pushes the glass outwards until it lines the mould. A rough
shape of the bottle has been formed.

The first mould is split open and the half formed bottle is gripped by the neck and
swung into the second mould, which closes around it. A final blow of high pressure air
is applied to form the bottle to its final shape.

The bottles are then passed slowly through a heat tunnel to ensure that they cool
gradually, and are sprayed with a sterate coating to reduce friction.

Page 6 of 36
Bottle inspection areas

Modern empty bottle inspectors use cameras to record an image of a part of a bottle
(such as the base), then compare that image through a computer system with a ‘mask’
of how that part of the bottle should look. If there is a difference between the image
and the mask the bottle is rejected.

The most basic Empty Bottle Inspectors (EBI’s) will scan the base, side wall and
mouth of the bottle and possibly the locking ring as well. More advanced machines
have additional cameras for scanning the sidewall. Additional inspection will cover
height inspection at the infeed for foreign bottles and residual liquid detection.

It is important in tropical countries to have a cooling system and humidity control for
electronic equipment.

The screen of this Heuft EBI below shows that it has infeed detection for foreign
bottles, locking ring inspection (finish inspection), sidewall inspection, base inspection
and high frequency residual liquid detection.

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 Foreign bottle detection

A wide range of bottles are used in the beverage industry, and it often happens that
bottles used by another company find their way onto the bottling line and can cause
damage at the filler or labeller.

Many Empty bottle inspectors have a device on the infeed to check for foreign bottles
and to remove them. This device does not use camera technology, it is normally a
system of photocells and a rejector that removes any bottle that is too tall or too short.

In the case where there is a mixing of bottles of identical height, then a camera type
foreign bottle inspector has to be installed, that photographs the bottle profile and
compares it with the correct shape.

The foreign bottle check will normally incorporate a ‘hard’ rejector that pushes the
bottles off of the conveyor and into a bin. A ‘soft’ rejector is one that channels the
bottles to another conveyor line.

The ‘hard’ rejecter is also referred to as impulse or hammer type, and can be used
here as the foreign bottles are to be destroyed, so are merely knocked into a bin.

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Mouth inspection

The mouth is the sealing surface to which the crown is attached. The purpose of mouth
inspection is to remove any bottles that have chips on the surface (often caused by bottle
openers) that would cause the bottle to leak when it has been crowned.

The strobe shines down onto the locking ring (orange arrows).

The light reflects off of the locking ring, up to the mirror, and then to the camera lens.

False rejection can occur due to the dust accumulation at the starwheel.

Trigger photocells inside the EBI

detect the presence of a bottle and
send a signal to the strobe lamp (infra-
red lamps or led lamps) to flash.

Here there are 2 triggers, one for the

mouth inspection and one for the base
inspection.

Page 9 of 36
 On this Heuft machine 2 pieces of
glass with areas painted in black is
used to direct the light of the strobe
onto the locking ring, and to make
sure that the image of the ring is
reflected to the camera.

The circle ensures that only the

reflected light from the locking ring
reaches the mirror.

Here the locking ring camera can be

seen, which is where the final mirror
directs the image of the locking ring.

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 Base inspection

The optical arrangements required for base inspection are simpler than for locking ring
inspection. When inspecting the base we are primarily trying to detect dirt or foreign
objects in the bottle base. It is common for there to be stubborn spots of mould, or
items that cannot come out of the bottle, such as straws, pen tops, plastic paper or
crowns (foreign objects).

Light from a strobe lamp beneath the diffuser plate shines through the bottle base and
forms an image in the camera.

‘False’ rejects, the rejection of bottles that have no defects, often occurs because of
variations in the glass on the bottle base. Such variations can include mould numbers,
bubbles, emboss or circular marks from the baffle plate, which is the base of the mould.
These variations are seen by the camera as defects and the bottles are thus rejected.
The presence of dust on the inspection lamp cover can cause false rejection.

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 On this Heuft machine the strobe is
mounted in a box below the conveyor.

The strobe unit can be pulled out for

easy cleaning of the diffuser plate.

It may have occurred to you that

inspection of the bottle base cannot be
done if the bottle is sitting on a bottle
conveyor !

For this reason the bottles are

suspended inside the EBI, held in place
and transported through the machine by
belts.

On the left is a base inspection camera,

and below the drive chains for the belts
can be seen.

The belts on this machine are directly

driven via a coupling from the bottle
conveyors.

Some machines use independent

motors for the belts.

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Sidewall inspection

Sidewall inspection is concerned with detecting dirt on

the side of the bottle, labels which may be inside or
outside of the bottle or foreign objects such as pens or
straws.

On this Heuft design shown below a single camera

and a system of mirrors is used to inspect almost all of
the outside wall surface. To inspect the whole of the
outer surface, a second camera can be installed and
the bottle is rotated after it has been viewed by the first
camera.

It should be obvious that sidewall inspection can only be carried out before or after the
machine belts, when the bottle is on the conveyor, and the bottles have to be separated
by a small gap.

Light from all sides of the bottle is reflected by the mirrors onto the camera lens.

Here is the sidewall strobe unit, which has been swung out of the machine for cleaning.
It contains a diffuser plate to evenly spread the light.

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 Light from the diffuser plate
enters the windows of the
inspection unit shown here

The light from around the bottle is reflected up into the camera lens by the system of
mirrors.

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 Residual liquid inspection

It sometimes occurs in the bottle washer that a foreign object, such as a label, allows
caustic to enter the bottle but prevents the caustic from completely draining out when
the bottle is inverted. On the packaging line we then have a bottle containing a few mm
of caustic soda.

Some EBI’s use infra-red sensors to detect the presence of residual caustic, as it will be
warm, others use high frequency transmitters.

A pulse is emitted by the high frequency transmitter, and the reflection back to the
receiver is changed if liquid is present in the bottom of the bottle.

Bottle rejection

If defects are found on the bottles by

either the finish inspection, base
inspection, residual liquid inspection or
sidewall inspection, then the bottles are
rejected.

Each bottle is thus tracked by the high

speed computer system as it passes
through the machine, to ensure that it
passes each inspection.

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 If the bottle has a defect, then it is
rejected when it reaches the rejector at
the machine discharge.

The Heuft rejecter consists of a set of

fingers.

The fingers rotate into the path of the

bottle to be rejected, moving it across
the conveyer to the reject line.

Here you can see the fingers and the

pistons that activate them.

At low speed all of the fingers are

activated, at higher speeds only the
first few fingers are used.

Vital hint

Never ever add oil to the pistons on this

type of rejector.

They are designed to run dry and are

destroyed if they are oiled.

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Manufacturers of empty bottle inspectors

Objective

Name six manufacturers of empty bottle inspectors

Manufacturer Empty Bottle Inspector

Heuft manufacture a range of inspection

equipment apart from Empty Bottle Inspectors.

The EBI shown here has sidewall inspection

before and after the base and locking ring
inspection.

Industrial Dynamics manufacture the Filtec

range of inspection equipment.

The Spectroscan series of machines are a basic

EBI that uses a light source and a sensor to
detect base defects.

A low cost solution for lower technology

environments

Page 17 of 36
The Filtec Onmnivision 1200 is, by contrast, a full
function Empty Bottle Inspector with camera
inspection of locking rings, sidewall and bottle
base.

These machines are available from industrial

Dynamics, or under the KHS brand name.

Kettner have been taken over by the Krones

company, but their EBI’s are still found in
operation.

KHS manufacture a range of Empty Bottle

Inspectors. Their designs tend to be rotary rather
than in-line.

Krones Empty Bottle Inspectors are also often

rotary type machines, as shown here.

Other manufacturers include BW Inex (VT800).

Page 18 of 36
Operation and maintenance of empty bottle inspectors

Objective

To understand the operation and maintenance of empty bottle inspectors

There are 3 types of problems you may encounter with Empty Bottle Inspectors:

· Non operation of the machine due to mechanical or electrical failure, so that

the machine does not process bottles.

· Rejection of bottles that are apparently not defective – false rejects

· Failure to reject bottles that are defective.

(Failure of reject hook on the reject starwheel.)

Mechanical or electrical failure

Normal maintenance procedures apply in the case of mechanical or electrical failure of

an EBI.

Mechanically most EBI’s are relatively simple, requiring only proper lubrication and
periodic adjustment of belts, chains and wear plates to ensure a smooth bottle transfer
through the machine.

Electronically they are extremely complex, and in general susceptible to power surges.
Welding should never be carried out on an EBI or the conveyors attached to it without
the proper grounding and isolation of the EBI.

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Rejection of good bottles or non rejection of faulty bottles.

The primary cause of EBI rejection problems, particularly a high rate of false rejects, is
inadequate cleaning. Operator cleaning is normally required at least every hour to
remove dirt from the glasses, strobe covers and photocells.

A common cause of high reject rates is also the presence of chain-lube on the base of
the bottle or poor glass distribution on the new bottle or bubbles appeared on the
defective bottles. The chain-lube soap bubbles appear to be dirt on the base of the
bottles. Blowing devices are often installed, but cutting down the chain-lube supply to
the conveyors leading to the EBI is normally helpful in reducing the reject rate.

If a high rate of rejects occurs, then the first

step should be to interrogate the computer
system to see which camera or detector is
rejecting the bottles.

This will tell you where to start looking for the

problem.

Some machines allow you to view the camera

image, and will even highlight the part of the
image that caused the rejection.

If you now find that the bottles are rejected

because of dirt, fractures etc.. then you have
a washing or bottle supply problem and
should not adjust the EBI.

If you find that bottles are rejected because

of rings on their base from the moulds, mould
lines on the side of the bottle, characters
marked on the base or other glass defects,
there is little you can do except consult with
the glass suppliers regarding the problem.

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One common course of events is that as the strobe lamp bulbs become older and
weaker, the sensitivity of the rejection system is continually reduced to compensate.

Strobe lamp bulbs should be replaced at the recommended time period regardless of
their condition, which is normally after 100 million flashes.

The non rejection of defects is a serious problem as you are allowing dirty or chipped
bottles to be filled. The reject system is protected with a safety sensor and the machine
will be stopped. Hence, the reject hook must be checked regularly with good
maintenance to maintain the mechanical device.

It is essential that the test bottles are sent through the EBI frequently, and that if a test
bottle is not rejected then production should be stopped until the fault is found and
rectified.

· Sometimes false alarms occur when the targets placed in the bottles (small
black paper squares) fall out.

· The reasons for non-rejection of defective bottles are normally because the
sensitivity has been reduced or the camera switched off.

· Another common fault is the timing or cleanliness of the trigger photocells, if

they tell the strobe to flash at the wrong fraction of a second then the bottle is
not in place when the strobe flashes.

· Other causes of non rejection include failure of the power supply to the
strobes or failure of the processing cards. Specialist technicians are then
required.

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Theory of container contents inspection

Objective

To understand the theory of container contents (fill level) inspection

Most bottle or can inspectors use a radioactive source (Such as Americanum 236) that
emits a steady stream of Gamma rays. The source of radioactive material is protected in
a container with a small exit hole on one side.

The exit hole is protected by a shutter, which must be closed when the machine is not
inspecting containers.

Gamma rays easily penetrate glass or aluminium cans, but are deflected by the liquid
beer. Gamma rays also easily penetrate the skin and cause internal cell damage, which is
why you must not put your hand inside the inspector unless the shutter is closed.

The source containment area of the Filtec must NEVER be worked on except by a
Technician who is licensed to work with radioactive materials.

The gamma source and receiver are shown diagrammatically below.

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For no beer being present (underfill) , a certain number of gamma ray particles will be
received by the receiver in a certain time period. This pulse rate can be set by technicians
to allow for the density of the glass bottle.

You can imagine that less gamma rays will be able to reach the detector when there is an
overfilled bottle, because the gamma rays have to go through the glass AND beer.

So a high pulse rate indicates that the gamma rays went only through glass and not
through glass AND beer. Conclusion is that the bottle was underfilled and the bottle should
be rejected.

When the beer level is correct, and blocks the gamma source, less gamma particles are
received by the sensor, telling the computer that the bottle is acceptable.

For Industrial Dynamics Filtec inspection machines the FT50 series uses a gamma ray
radioactive source.

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The FT70 series uses an x-ray tube instead of a Gamma ray source. The X ray source is
contained within an X ray tube, fitted with an electronic shutter. There is no external
shutter on the FT 70, as when the x-ray tube is deactivated it is safe and does not emit x-
rays.

Page 24 of 36
Methods of container inspection

Objective

Describe 5 types of product inspection

Full container inspection is primarily concerned with ensuring that the correct amount of
beer is in each container, and secondarily with ensuring that the containers are closed and
sealed properly so that the beer will remain in the container.

A third form of full container inspection is to check that each case or crate has the correct
number of containers packed into it.

Fill level inspection

Full Container inspection is carried out either just after the filler or after the labeller. This
inspection is often referred to as follows:

PFBI/PFCI: Preliminary Full Bottle Inspector – Bottle (or can) fill level inspector just after
the filler.

FFBI/FFCI: Final Full Bottle Inspector – Bottle (or can) fill level inspector just after the
labeller (Before the tray packer for cans). Can include label inspection.

Above: Inside the Filtec, on the Right a

Final Full Can Inspector installed before
the tray packer.

Page 25 of 36
Valve monitor

In the case of Preliminary Full Bottle (or Can)

Inspection, underfills are rejected just after
filling, so that the filler operator can quickly
see if there are problems and can take
corrective action. Often the PFBI is linked
electronically to the filler, so that for each
bottle (or can) the PFBI knows which filler
valve it came from, and the PFBI then
becomes a Valve Monitor. Valve monitors
give constant valve performance information
to the filler operator and allow for effective
filler valve maintenance.

Preliminary Inspection is particularly

important on a canning line as the cost of
throwing away cans that are underfilled is
very high, and the can cannot be reused
once it has been seamed. It is thus essential
that valves that are underfilling are fixed as
soon as problems occur.

The disadvantage of inspection at the filler is that there is foam present in the headspace
of the can or bottle, which interferes with the inspection process. The presence of foam
means that inspection will only be accurate to within about 3-5mm of height.

Final fill height inspection is carried out when the foam has settled, and is normally
accurate to within 1mm of height.

Most basic full container inspectors measure the height of the contents of the container.

Page 26 of 36
Other areas that are measured or checked include:

Missing crown detection

The sensor within the inspection head

checks for the presence of a crown and
the bottle is rejected if the crown is
missing:

Label check inspection

This label check inspector uses photocells

to check for the prescence of labels on
each body. The inspector can be
programmed to check for body labels,
neck labels, back labels and foils

Page 27 of 36
Crate contents inspection

The full crate Inspector uses either

photocells or gamma ray to scan the crate
or carton and to check that the correct
number of bottles are present. If any
bottles are missing then the crate is
rejected.

Peaked can detection

‘Peaked’ cans are those that due to slight overfilling have such a high internal pressure
that the can end deforms and pushes upwards. This problem is often found in tunnel
pasteurisers where the heating process causes the can end to deform. These are also
referred to as BLOWN cans.

Blown can detection is provided on filtec can inspectors using a fibre optic transmitter and
receiver, which detects a can that is higher than standard.

Page 28 of 36
Rejection devices
Objective

Describe one hard and three soft rejection system

Container rejection is either HARD or SOFT depending on whether the container is to be

recovered or not.

Hard rejectors
In the case of a canning line, underfills have to be destroyed, so a HARD rejector, a
Hammer type rejector, is used to reject the can from the packaging line. As the can passes
the hammer pad it moves outwards at a high speed, throwing the can off the conveyor and
into a bin below.

Page 29 of 36
Soft rejecters
Where the containers are to be emptied and used again then a SOFT rejection mechanism
is needed that moves the containers into a different conveyor lane without them falling
over.

Finger type rejecter

The Heuft rejector consists of a set of
fingers.

The fingers rotate into the path of the

bottle to be rejected, moving it across
the conveyor to the reject line.

Here you can see the fingers and the

pistons that activate them.

At low speed all of the fingers are

activated, at higher speeds only the first
few fingers are used.

Rotary rejecter:
This KHS rejecter consists of a rotating
cam that spins at a high speed and
pushes the bottle onto a different
conveyor lane.

Page 30 of 36
Sliding rejecter fingers
This rejecter has fingers that move on a
belt and match the speed of the bottle.
As the fingers progress from the start to
the end of the rejector, they push out
further moving the bottle across the
conveyor to the reject line.

Page 31 of 36
EBI questions
Question One:

Which of the following methods can be used to detect residual liquid in a bottle?

TICK HERE

A Ultra Violet

B Ultra Sonic

C Infra red

D Gamma ray

Question Two:

Which of the following detection zones are NOT found in a typical EBI ?

TICK HERE

A Finish Inspection

B Shoulder Inspection

C Base Inspection

E Sidewall Inspection

Question Three:

Which checks will an EBI NOT perform at foreign bottle detection at the machine infeed ?

TICK HERE

A Check for over height

B Check for fallen bottles

C Check for incorrect colour

D Check for underheight

Page 32 of 36
Question Four:

Which of the following companies manufacture EBI’s ?

TICK HERE

A Boeing

B Industrial Dynamics

C Huppman

D Alfa Laval

Question Five:

Which of the following would cause a high rate of false rejects?

TICK HERE

A Dirty bottles

B Chipped bottles

C Excessive chainlube

D Foreign objects

Question Six:

Bottles are coated with?

TICK HERE

A Stearate

B Poly Vinyl Chloride

C Silicate

D Thin oil

Page 33 of 36
Question Seven:

Foreign bottles can be detected with

TICK HERE

A Photocells

B Camera

C Photograph of bottle profile

D All of the above

Question Eight:

Mouth inspection is to:

TICK HERE

A Detect mould on the surface

B Detect chips on the surface

C Detect dirt at the bottom of the bottle

D Detect loss of stearate coating

Question Nine:

False rejects during base inspection can be caused by

TICK HERE

A Bubbles in the glass

B Low gamma ray activity

C Crown still in place

D Glass colour

Page 34 of 36
Question Ten:

Fill level detectors normally use

TICK HERE

A Infra red light

B Ultra violet light

C Gamma ray or X ray source

D Sonic transducer

Question Eleven:

Radio active material is only harmful if..

TICK HERE

A You are exposed for a long time

B You are not wearing gloves

C You are not wearing eye protection

D Always

Question Twelve:

Which of the following is a method of product inspection

TICK HERE

A Fill level inspection

B Valve monitor

C Peaked can inspection

D All of the above

Page 35 of 36
Question Thirteen:

Preliminary inspection at the filler on can lines is important.. why?

TICK HERE

A Cans don’t foam so it is easier

B Cans are expensive and cannot be re used after seaming

C Cans fall over easily so quick inspection is necessary

D Cans have to be seamed quickly

Question Fourteen:

Hard rejection devices are used because...

TICK HERE

A Bottles are heavy

B They are cheaper

C Rejected bottles will be destroyed anyway

D They are safer

Question Answer
1 C
2 B
3 C
4 B
5 C
6 A
7 D
8 B
9 A
10 C
11 D
12 D
13 B
14 C

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