Capmatic’s Flowstar® in-line piston filler provides packagers with flexibility, speed, and accuracy, primarily for filling liquids and cremes in pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and personal care applications.

Capmatic introduced Flowstar last year. Uniquely versatile, it allows changeover from volumetric piston filling to mass flow metering because the filling nozzles are mounted on docking stations that are rolled in or out depending on the product requirements. The machine is controlled by an Elau servo system, which is integrated in the volumetric piston filler docking station.

“The biggest advantage of using the servo control is that [it permits] ‘profile’ filling,” says Michel Mosseau, director of sales for capmatic. With a tapered honey container, for example, the Flowstar could fill at a faster velocity “where it’s wider at the bottom,” then slow down the fill as the container narrows towards its top.

“With the servo controls,” he says, “we can program in various fill velocities” based on where the piston is in its stroke. “So if you have an eight-inch stroke to fill a particular bottle, four inches into the stroke you can slow down to a different velocity for the next inch, then finish off the rest of the fill at a different speed.”

The servos control two axes of motion. One is the diving of the bottom-up fill nozzles. The other is the actuation of the pistons.