With so many different liquid bottle filling machine models on the market today, it can be hard to find your way around choosing the suitable filling machine. Though there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, as a liquid bottle filling machine manufacturer, we always want what’s best for you. So we’ve put together a list of the seven most important factors you should consider when deciding what kind of machine is ideal for you.
Whether you’re a small business owner just starting out or a pharmaceutical company that packages medication in exact dosages at a speed of hundreds of bottles per minute. Taking the time to think through the questions below will help you make an informed investment.
1. Properties of Liquids: What characteristics does your product have?
Find out how thick or hard the fluid is to flow through on its own or how vicious it is. Molasses is not like water in that it doesn’t move quickly. So, the filling equipment you buy must be able to handle a very viscous liquid’s increased volume. Use our helpful Viscosity Table to get an idea of how thick your liquid is.
Do you know if there are any particles in your product? What is the level of its solidity? In these cases, you might need a piston or pump filler.
2. Container: What type of container are you going to fill?
What is the material of the container? Filling plastic, glass, or aluminum all requires a different method. Choosing which automatic filling machine for liquids to buy will be easier if you know what kind of material is being used.
The best machine will also depend on the shape of the container. If your container has a non-standard lid or cap, automatic bottle fillers that take bottles from the top may not be ideal. Also, a bottle filler that holds the bottle from the side might not work well with wide containers. As a liquid filling machine manufacturer, we’d love the chance to look at your container and give you some ideas.
3. Speed: How quickly do you want your bottles to be filled?
Is speed always better? It depends on the situation. A business that makes a lot of products quickly will likely benefit from the best machines. A smaller company might give up some speed to save money and space. Smaller machines are timed by how many bottles they make per hour (BPH). Bottles per minute are used to measure the speed of a bigger, more efficient liquid bottle filling machine (BPM).
Word of advice: when buying a liquid bottle filling machine, make sure you don’t forget what your production needs will be in the future. Buying with growth in mind is easier than trying to upgrade equipment later on.
4. Automated or Manual: What level of automation is suitable for your application?
Manual Liquid filling machines are made for low production levels. They are available at a low price and are a space-saving choice for beginners and small businesses that don’t plan to grow.
Semi-automatic liquid filling machines can fill bottles much faster than manual machines, but they still need to be operated by hand. These machines won’t be able to work as quickly as fully automated machines. But because they are priced in the middle, they are often the best choice for small and medium enterprises that don’t need the biggest systems yet but want to grow.
The automatic liquid bottle filling machine is the workhorses of production and is perfect for large companies that make many products. Conveyors on these machines pull bottles from a large storage area. They take up the most space on the floor and are more expensive to buy and keep up than manual or semi-automatic filling machines. They work with either no or very little help from workers.
5. Filled-by-Type: Should you fill by level or volume?
You must decide whether you need a liquid-level filler or a volumetric filling machine. This is a very important choice. To decide, you need to think about two things. What kind of liquid are you using, and how do you want the bottles to look when packed?
Liquid Level Fillers
Even if the amount of liquid in each bottle is different, these fillers fill each bottle to the exact level set. This filling method works better and costs less. Also, it makes all the bottles look the same and pleasant to the eye, which is very attractive to customers. Pressure-overflow fillers are usually used in liquid-level filling machines. They have a very fast fill rate and can work with various viscosities. Any product left in the tubes after filling is pushed back into the tank. This keeps the tank from overflowing and spilling.
Volumetric Filling Machines
These machines fill each bottle with the same amount of liquid, even if the shape or size of the bottle makes the liquids look at different levels. These fillers cost more to run because they need special timing, balancing, and calibration tools. When the liquid needs packaging in exact amounts or reducing waste is necessary, the extra cost is worth it.
There are three kinds of volumetric filling machines:
- Gravity-fed fillers are cheaper and work best with liquids that aren’t too thick or have a lot of foam. As the bottles are filled, the liquid is kept above them so that gravity can help.
- Check-valve piston fillers work well with liquids with low viscosity, while very thick products work well with other piston fillers (rotary-valve piston fillers). They work by moving products in exact amounts from one part of the machine to another.
- Pump fillers can be used with any viscosity and are specially made for thick products that need more effort to flow through the machine.
6. In-Line or Rotary: Which is more important for your application: speed or adaptability?
In-line filling machines fill four to twenty bottles at a time, one after the other, in a single line. Perfect for small and midsized businesses. This is because they cost less, can adapt to different bottle shapes, and make switching products easy without changing parts.
Rotary filling machines cost more, are harder to use, and can’t be stopped in the middle of production if something goes wrong. Also, the changeover takes longer and costs more because each bottle and cap has its own parts. Even so, their speed and ability to fill more than a hundred bottles at once make them essential for a large business that needs to make many products.
7. Service and Assistance: What level of customization and support do you require?
A liquid bottle filling machine is a very precise piece of equipment that is often a big investment. The best way to get the most out of that investment is to choose a manufacturer who will work with you to ask important questions, figure out what your goals are, and design a solution that always goes above and beyond what you expected.