A Series and AS Series tray denesters
Automatic tray placing that fits the way your line runs.
Manually placing trays, pots or tubs onto a production line is repetitive, labour intensive and increasingly difficult to justify. Not every application needs a high-speed rotary denester.
The A Series uses pneumatic pick-and-place motion for straightforward, flexible, cost-effective intermittent denesting. The AS Series adds servo control where the application, speed or lane configuration calls for greater control, or where a site prefers to move away from compressed air. Both machines run exactly the same range of products, including fibre and barrier-lined trays.
See them run.
The A Series denesting trays on a customer production line.
The AS Series twin arm denester in production.
A Series, the flexible workhorse.
Available in 650, 750, 850, 950 and 1,250 mm widths, the A Series can be configured with a single magazine or multiple magazines to suit the product pitch and the required capacity. More magazines mean more trays loaded at one time and less frequent operator replenishment.
It handles plastic, foil, card, pulp, fibre and barrier-lined trays, tubs and lids, and places onto belt conveyors, indexing conveyors, chain and peg systems, platen conveyors and other packaging machine infeeds, which makes it the natural choice where several formats share one line or a denester has to fit an existing layout. Both machines mount over an existing line or perpendicular to it.
An A Series installed over the line, magazine loaded and running.
Format masks and suction tooling stored together on a mobile stand beside the line, organised and protected from damage.
Production changes. Your denester can change with it.
Food manufacturers rarely run one tray forever. New customers, new products and changing packaging materials all create new format requirements, and replacing or heavily modifying a denester every time packaging changes is expensive and disruptive.
The A Series uses factory-set magazine masks and dedicated pick tooling, so the critical denesting geometry is already established for each tray. Operators change the format parts rather than recreating machine settings, in minutes, and for sites running several formats the mask and suction tooling can live together on a mobile stand beside the line, organised and ready for the next run.
AS Series, servo control without changing what you can run.
Some customers want more control, and some simply want less compressed air. Producing air is expensive, and sites counting the running cost of pneumatics increasingly specify servo drives instead.
A pneumatic drive can be sped up or slowed down, but its acceleration and deceleration are fixed. Servo motion is shaped: the machine can pick quickly from the magazine, then slow down to place accurately, and that control is exactly what shows at higher speeds. The AS Series runs exactly the same products as the A Series, is based around the 850 mm machine width with multiple magazines to suit the product pitch, keeps the same quick-change masks, and comes with the height-adjustable magazine as standard.
The AS Series servo denester installed at a customer site.
The same AS Series feeding the line, with the multihead weigher above.
Two lanes do not always behave like one.
A filling or packing machine may have two lanes, but those lanes do not necessarily stay synchronised. One may stop while the other continues. The twin independent drive AS Series lets each magazine operate independently, so the denester keeps supplying one lane when the other has stopped, rather than stopping the complete process.
A Series or AS Series?
For many applications the pneumatic A Series is the simplest and most cost-effective solution, and not every line needs or can justify a servo-driven machine. Choose the AS Series where motion control, speed or independent lane operation matters, or where the running cost of compressed air points away from pneumatics. The machine should be selected around the production requirement, not around the most sophisticated technology.
Machine facts
| A Series | AS Series | |
|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Flexible, cost-effective intermittent denesting across mixed products and lines | Higher speeds, independent twin-lane running, and sites moving away from compressed air |
| Drive | Pneumatic pick-and-place | Servo-driven, twin independent drive option |
| Widths and magazines | 650 to 1,250 mm, single to multiple magazines | 850 mm, multiple magazines |
| Speed | Up to 35 cycles per minute, one tray per magazine per cycle | Up to 50 cycles per minute |
| Formats and changeover | Plastic, foil, card, pulp, fibre and barrier-lined trays, tubs and lids. Factory-set masks, changed in minutes. | Same as the A Series |
Quick answers
How fast is the A Series?
The machine runs at up to 35 cycles per minute, and every magazine places a tray on each cycle, so tray output depends on the configuration. A twin magazine machine mounted perpendicular to the line places two trays per cycle. All figures are product and application dependent, which is why PiP tests the actual trays first.
What is the difference between the A Series and the AS Series?
They run exactly the same products. The A Series is pneumatic, simple and cost effective. The AS Series is servo driven: a pneumatic drive runs faster or slower but its acceleration is fixed, while servo motion is shaped, picking quickly and placing precisely, which matters at higher speeds, on independent twin lanes, and on sites that want to avoid the running cost of compressed air.
How quickly can the A Series change between tray sizes?
In minutes. Each tray size has its own factory-set magazine mask and pick tooling, fitted without tools, with change parts stored on a mobile stand beside the line.
Will your tray denest reliably?
Packaging dimensions alone do not tell us how well a tray will separate. Wall angle, flange design, material, surface finish, denesting features and manufacturing consistency can all affect performance. That is why PiP tests the actual production packaging wherever possible before finalising the machine solution.
Send us your trays. We will test them on our rig and show you how they behave.
Send us your trays and production requirements.
We will help determine which solution is appropriate, and prove it on the rig before you commit.