On cheese and sausage cutting machines, smaller portions are cut from large bars from a certain number of slices with a predetermined weight. Up to 1,000 cuts/min are achieved. The aim is to achieve the specified weight with a constant number of slices. For legal reasons, the weight may not be significantly less than the specified weight, but from a cost perspective, no overweight should occur. A camera system is used to achieve this.

The application requires a very fast system for image acquisition and evaluation. Since the width of the bartacks can be up to 250mm or two bars can be fed simultaneously, a high-resolution camera is also required for larger machines. During evaluation, the sectional area of the bartack is determined in mm and the density is used to calculate the required thickness of the next slice. The fast servo motor then adjusts this accordingly in ms. At very high speeds, practically not every pane is adjusted. The function is still available, however, since the changes to the sausage contour or the holes in the cheese do not occur abruptly. The system receives its feedback from the downstream scales and automatically adjusts itself to the correct actual values.

Thanks to our camera system, the good yield of products is higher, as the beginning and end pieces are used optimally. In addition, there is a significant product saving by approaching the nominal weight. Due to the large quantities of cut products, your machine vision system pays for itself within a short time. The cooperation with the machine builder CFS Kempten also ensures the delivery of a system optimally adapted to these machines from one source.