When it comes to choosing the right conveyor for your food processing operation, bucket elevators and vertical z conveyors are often top contenders. Understanding the features, benefits, and limitations of each can help you make an informed decision. At Dynamic Conveyor, we believe that vertical z conveyors offer significant advantages over traditional bucket elevators. Let’s explore the key differences.
Product Size
Bucket Elevators are well-suited for small to medium-sized bulk materials, from powders to items up to 6 inches in diameter. However, they may struggle with larger, irregularly shaped items that can cause product containment challenges.
Vertical Z Conveyors are highly versatile, handling a range of product sizes from 1/8 inch to 6 inches in diameter, including fragile finished products. They are less effective with very fine or powdery materials, which have a tendency to fall back during conveyance.
Minimizing Product Damage and Containment
Bucket Elevators are generally gentle on granular or powdered products, minimizing spillage and degradation. Because bucket elevators have a larger infeed and outfeed product transfers present product containment challenges and can cause product damage during transfers.
Vertical Z Conveyors excel in gentle handling, making them ideal for fragile items like cereals, fruits, vegetables, pasta, confectionery, and cookies. Belts can be customized to their specific application and product ensuring gentle product handling, protection of finished products such as chocolates, while also ensuring the products will effectively release from the belt minimizing carryover. Product transfers are softer with vertical z conveyors, better containing product and minimizing product damage.
Maintenance Requirements
Bucket Elevators require frequent inspections, cleaning and lubrication of bearings, chains, and sprockets. Regular checks for material build-up and belt alignment are essential to prevent breakdowns. The maintenance complexity is high due to the numerous parts involved and can be time consuming. Additionally, due to the size and weight of buckets, maintenance often involves multiple individuals to complete.
Vertical Z Conveyors from Dynamic Conveyor are designed for low maintenance, minimizing bearings and wear components that need frequent replacement. Tensionless belts reduce the need for routine inspection, ensure belts do not need to be tracked, and reduce wear and tear on the belts over the life of the conveyor. Maintenance is as minimal as a quarterly inspection of belting and drive components.
Sanitation Ease
In industries where hygiene is critical, such as food and pharmaceuticals, ease of cleaning is paramount.
Bucket Elevators can be challenging to clean due to their enclosed design and high numbers of moving parts and respective complexity. Material build-up can harbor contaminants, requiring thorough and frequent cleaning that in turn increases downtime.
Vertical Z Conveyors are designed with sanitation in mind. Their easy-to-clean surfaces and accessible components allow for quick disassembly and reassembly with most designs requiring no tools, reduce the risk of contamination and ensure compliance with hygiene standards. Ensuring sanitation can be completed quickly and thoroughly allows for improved production throughputs.
Ease of Installation
Bucket Elevators typically require a more complex installation process due to their robust construction and numerous components, such as buckets, chains or belts, and the supporting frame. The need for precise alignment and secure anchoring adds to the complexity, often necessitating professional installation services.
Vertical Z Conveyors are generally easier to install thanks to their smaller footprint, fewer components and simple designs. The conveyor can be assembled and adjusted more flexibly, allowing for quicker and more straightforward installation. Vertical z conveyors can be more easily reconfigured or expanded to meet changing operational needs. Overall, vertical z conveyors offer a more user-friendly installation process compared to the more intricate setup required for bucket elevators.
Safety Considerations
Bucket Elevators pose safety risks due to their numerous moving parts creating pinch points and greater potential for buckets to fall off. Regular maintenance is crucial to prevent mechanical failures and accidents.
Vertical Z Conveyors no pinch points, no chains, excellent product containment, offer better safety features. Their modular design and gentle handling of products contribute to lower safety risks.
Noise Levels
Bucket Elevators can be noisy due to the movement of buckets, chains, and sprockets. Noise levels increase with operational speed and the type of material being transported.
Vertical Z Conveyors operate more quietly due to the use of polyurethane or polypropylene belting and reduced mechanical components relative to bucket elevators.
Weight and Space Optimization
Bucket Elevator Conveyors can be very heavy relative to vertical z conveyors due to their construction and material make up. Additionally, they require added vertical infeed and outfeed for loading and unloading effectively, despite their ability to transport materials to great heights.
Vertical Z Conveyors are lighter and more space efficient, offering a compact design. Their vertical design with minimal infeed and outfeed length requirements maximizes floor space and offers layout flexibility, making them easier to integrate into existing production setups.
Conclusion
Choosing the right conveyor system depends on your specific operational needs. Vertical z conveyors offer numerous advantages over bucket elevator conveyors, making them an ideal solution for processing facilities that need to move products like nuts, seeds, candy, granola, fruits, and vegetables vertically to higher elevations.
Customer Testimonial
Georgia Nut Company Prefers the Efficiency of DynaClean Vertical Z Conveyors Over Bucket Conveyors
“In the past we had to stop and clean the bucket elevators before a product changeover. We couldn’t see the issues on the bucket elevators because they were 10 feet off the ground. With the DynaClean conveyors, we have very good visibility of the whole conveyor and what’s going on,” said Lucas McCallister, Process Engineer at Georgia Nut Company.
“DynaClean conveyors are very simple for the operators to take apart, to clean and put back together. Any shift can change, wash and put the DynaClean’s back together. They are very user friendly,” said McCallister.
“There are no tools needed, no small parts to lose, and no nooks or crannies to clean. The solid surface belting with scoop flights can be washed in a matter of minutes, versus the hours it can take to clean the buckets on an elevator conveyor.” McCallister continued.
