Key Technology introduces new product-specific infeed and collection conveyors for their new VERYX digital sorters. Designed to work together with VERYX belt-fed and chute-fed sorters as integrated systems, Key’s vibratory shakers and belt conveyors embody the company’s expertise in both product handling and sorting. These ideal conveying solutions, built for each product’s specific characteristics, maximize sorting performance to improve product quality and increase yields.
 
The infeed conveyors must optimize stabilization and separation of the product to the sorter. This creates a consistent feed through the sorter’s inspection and ejection zones, which ensures ultimate accuracy in detecting and sorting out every piece of foreign material (FM) and defective product while avoiding inadvertent removal of good product in the process. The sorter’s collection conveyors must create a soft landing and ease product deceleration to offer gentle handling and prevent damage to the product. Exactly how these objectives are best achieved depends on the conveyance properties of each product.
 
Based on years of experience testing and fine-tuning thousands of conveyors, Key’s new Application Matrix defines the ideal stroke, frequency, shape, slope, surface texture and other conveyor variables to match each product. For food processors that run multiple products on the same line, Key designs conveying solutions that offer the best performance across all the products with minimal adjustments needed at each changeover.
 
“The optimum infeed conveyor can improve a sorter’s performance significantly. We have improved digital sorting with our new VERYX sorters, and we are getting the most from these sophisticated systems by designing infeed and collection conveyors that best complement each application. With sorting and conveying under one roof, Key is able to deliver the ideal combined solution,” said Jim Ruff, General Manager of the Integrated Solutions Group at Key Technology. “Thanks to our extensive knowledge base and the use of advanced dynamic modeling, the art and science of designing conveyors has gotten more scientific.”
 
Key’s Application Matrix considers the many characteristics of each product to help determine the conveying systems that will produce the best results. From leafy greens that tend to stick to a conveyor or fly like a sail, peas that roll and ‘windrow,’ wet potato strips that stick and frozen potato strips that slide, a deep understanding of sorting and product handling enables Key to design the ideal infeed and collection conveyors that maximize the sorter’s success.
 
For more information on Key’s VERYX, visit www.key.net/products/veryx.