Budpak Bagging Machines Upgraded on Bulk Carrier Ship
30 July 2010
Existing Budpak bagging machines mounted aboard an ocean-going bulk carrier were recently upgraded with Budpak's latest scale controllers. The complete on-board bagging systems were designed and manufactured by Budpak for the innovative BIBO (Bulk In Bag Out) project for delivering bulk and pre-bagged sugar to European ports.
The bagging systems are installed on the carrier vessel CHL Progressor, which was converted into a refined sugar carrier in 1990 in Trieste. The 47,000t capacity bulk refined sugar carrier was fitted with six Budpak Duplex net weight bagging machines to allow discharge of its cargo in 50kg bags at a rate of 360t/hr.
The scale controllers originally fitted were no longer able to be supported with spare parts so the client upgraded the weighing electronics of the bagging machines to Budpak's latest Pack-Scan 500 weight controllers.
Budpak's PAK-SCAN 500 is based on an Allen-Bradley touch-screen PLC with custom software to provide an operator-friendly graphical interface to all weighing functions of the bagging machines. Each PACK-SCAN 500 is capable of controlling up to eight weighing buckets and achieving both high-speed filling rates combined with very high bag filling accuracies.
Budpak's bagging machines are a favourite with sugar companies throughout the Asia Pacific with over 60 retail weighers with six to eight weigh heads each being installed during the last 20 years.
An Accuweigh/Budpak service technician completed the bagging machine upgrade while the vessel was in dry dock in Istanbul, Turkey, with the final commissioning being completed in Holland when the bulk carrier was being loaded with white refined sugar.
