Maintaining your tablet coating machine parts is crucial to keep your machine running at optimum performance. But what encompasses a modern, efficient coating machine? Thomas explains the essential components of a tablet coating machine and how to maintain them.
Essential Components of a Tablet Coating Machine
Tablet coating machines consist of essential components designed to last and deliver high-quality performance. Coating equipment requires the following machine parts to operate successfully:
Automated Control System
Automated control systems make it simple to optimize the machine’s operations, ensuring maximum efficiency and safety. They monitor and control:
- Running/operating state
- Various parameters, such as temperature, speed, and negative pressure
- Process data display
- Spraying guns and optimization
- Recording and printing work state
Electric Motors
To perform multiple operations successfully, such as delivering conditioned process air to the tablets, pressure in the coating chamber, and mixing tablets, coating machines are manufactured with electric motors in several essential machine parts, including:
- Peristaltic pump
- Inlet Blower for the air handling unit
- Air exhaust section
- Coating drum
A single machine can have more than three motors, depending on the complexity of the design. The rating of the machine’s motor determines the energy consumption of the machine, allowing you to analyze the cost of the coating process.
Touch Screen Operation Panel
Modern tablet coating machines are equipped with a user-friendly human-machine interface (HMI). The HMI allows for seamless operation that results in quality coated tablets.
Mixing Baffles
Tablet coating systems require mixing baffles to:
- Allow tablets to tumble smoothly
- Effectively collide with the coating solution from the spray nozzle
- Prevent possible breakage or chipping
Another crucial feature of the mixing baffle is its narrow surface, which is required to prevent possible tablet to tablet adhesion of the coating material.
Peristaltic Pump
Peristaltic pumps have several crucial functions, including releasing constant pressure to eliminate the need for return pipes and stabilizing atomization to make the system easy to automate.
Spraying System
Tablet coating spray systems include the tank, spray nozzle, and pumps in their innovative design, making it a seamless process for:
- Cleaning and maintaining the spraying guns
- Stabilizing automation
- Preventing spraying guns from plugging up
- Saving coating solutions
- Efficiently achieving large spray coverage
How to Maintain Your Tablet Coating Machine
To keep your tablet coating machine in quality condition, it’s essential to perform the following routine equipment maintenance:
- Replace lubricating oil in the reducer casing and rolling bearings at least every six months.
- Clean the coating pot regularly. Lubricate its surface.
- Clean the spraying gun regularly. Disassemble the spray head and clean if residue remains.
- Monitor the temperature in the container.
- This confirms that the worm gear in the reducer casing meets the standard of lubrication.
- Replace oil-proof gasket rings in the worm place at least every six months.
- Confirm that your machine is connected with ground wire.
- The electrical resistance should be ≤4Ω.
- Do not dismantle your machine at will.
Crucial Tablet Coating Repair Parts to Keep On Hand
Thomas Engineering knows the significance of keeping emergency and daily-use repair parts in easy reach. Our spare parts kits are designed to meet a wide range of coating standards and are customized for the unique needs of each of our clients.
Thomas’s Consumable Spare Parts Kit
- Consists of parts that wear due to daily use
- Includes spare parts required for preventive maintenance and GMP replacement
Our Emergency Spare Parts Kit
- This kit consists of components not readily available off the shelf.
- Includes components recommended to be kept onsite to minimize downtime in the event of a component failure
Thomas Engineering: Quality Tablet Coating Machines
As an original innovator in pharmaceutical machinery, Thomas has shown a commitment to excellence in tablet manufacturing for decades.
Setting today’s industry standard more than 50 years ago, Thomas’s tablet coating machines revolutionized the industry with ACCELA COTA® coating systems, featuring our fully perforated drum design. Our team of engineers continue to design and develop new equipment and tooling for tablet coating that offer unmatched benefits, like unrestricted air flow and thermodynamic efficiency. We continually improve processes and operations with each advancement.
From our revolutionary Thomas Spray System, featuring the patented Thomas Spray Bar, to our world-class COMPU-COAT control systems, designed with a widescreen, user-friendly HMI, depend on Thomas to continue performing efficient tablet coating successfully.
