At Norpak Handling, we supply a wide range of conveyor systems including gravity conveyors, belt conveyors, and vertical conveyors. One of the more popular types of vertical conveyors are spiral conveyors. Spiral conveyors have a host of advantages, including the fact that they are continuously running, resulting in a minimized need for control software making them less complex while taking up much less floor space. They are known for their ability to deliver up to three times the throughput of platform style Vertical Conveyors while still achieving a much smaller footprint than a conventional incline/decline conveyor.
In a previous blog, we went over the different types of incline conveyor systems supplied at Norpak Handling, including vertical and spiral conveyors. As mentioned in that blog, spiral conveyors offer high throughput capacities and require less floor space. In today’s blog, we examine two different types of spiral conveyors supplied at Norpak: the Ambaflex down going spiral conveyor, and a gravity spiral slide, which is similar to a gravity conveyor except the spiral slide does not use rollers.
Ambaflex Down Going Spiral Conveyor
Ambaflex is a leading provider of spiral conveyor solutions. The SpiralVeyor series of conveyors are the go-to for industries and applications requiring vertical transportation as well as the accumulation of products all in one conveyor system. Indeed, the higher throughputs and productivity of spiral conveyors is what makes them particularly attractive to industries that have to transport high volumes of product while changing elevations (up or down) within a limited footprint. Most of the time, the Ambaflex spiral conveyor is used to replace an incline or decline conveyor where floor space is a problem, allowing manufacturing plants to save space. You will be able to achieve a much greater throughput than reciprocating or continuous vertical conveyors, without the added complexity of controls.
Gravity Spiral Slide
Unlike the Ambaflex Down Going Spiral Conveyor, gravity spiral slides, much like gravity conveyors, do not require power to operate. Much like gravity conveyors, products or packages are simply placed on the slide and descend on their own. These types of slides are typically used for rejected or no-read packages from an automated system where floor space does not allow for a large footprint to decline down to working height on the floor. Rejected or non-readable packages are transferred into this gravity spiral slide, which takes them down to a manual work table where they are hand palletized or re-labeled for re-induction back into the automatic system.
If you are looking to choose between these two descending spiral conveyor solutions, keep in mind that the gravity spiral slide cannot provide consistent case orientation. If this is critical to your applications, you should opt for the Ambaflex spiral conveyor.
No matter the kind of conveying solution you need, you can count on Norpak Handling to deliver. Whether you need gravity conveyors, vertical conveyors, or more customized systems, we make sure to take the time to understand your applications and develop the right solution for you.
