PTL is a New Zealand engineering company, specialising in designing and manufacturing innovative chocolate and bar machinery. With a clear objective to create high-quality machinery focused on simplifying operations and improving efficiency, PTL collaborates with customers to ensure that their chocolate and bar machinery meets their needs.
Chocolate coatings are a key ingredient in many popular products including granola bars and the confectionary industry. Some of the issues faced by companies which melt product in the chocolate and snack industry today are footprint, changeover times, washdown times and melt rates. The key features of the PTL Continuous Melters help address these common industry challenges.
Features
Options
Benefits
The PTL Melter has the ability to handle a large range of products used in the baking, snack and confectionary industries. In various formats, the machine can melt chocolate, compound, cocoa liquor, cocoa butter, dairy butter, shortening and various fats for a variety of end user applications.
“The unique features of the PTL melters are their flexibility and washdown capability, enabling users to go from one product to another quickly and easily, maximising production. They are designed to melt product continuously, corresponding to downstream production rates,” explained Brandon Sermaine, product design engineer, PTL.
The melters incorporate smart machine technologies from Rockwell Automation including the Allen-Bradley® CompactLogix controller™, PowerFlex® 525 drives, PanelView™ Plus 7 Electronic Operating Interface and the latest I/O Link Sensor Technology with POINT I/O-Link master.
The flexibility of IO-Link capable sensors allows the machine to operate more effectively by providing the controller with diagnostics. In addition to process information, sensors provide detailed and accurate machine health status to improve uptime and increase productivity.
“The PTL melters are smart machines with I/O Link Technology and control devices connected on the EtherNet/IP network. This makes troubleshooting very easy with advanced diagnostics available in real time both locally and remotely,” said Prasad Nory, industry manager, Rockwell Automation.
The CompactLogix controller is at the heart of the machine and delivers control with POINT I/O for standard control, I/O Link Master for smart sensors and PowerFlex 525 drives with Safe Torque Off (STO) with 10” PanelView Plus 7 HMI on Ethernet/IP which enables the melters to meet global safety standard Category 3 PLd.
The PTL melters help you meet changing consumer tastes by providing the flexibility for a fast changeover between multiple products. They can be used to melt blocks, buttons, wafers and chips thoroughly at high speed. The melters come with self-contained heating systems, providing the capability for transport but they can also be assembled to use with your existing hot water system as the heating source.
Hygiene is a key aspect of the PTL melters with hygienic washdown design enabling thorough and simple cleaning of the machine – this allows you to process different products on the same piece of equipment with minimal downtime. Furthermore, the melters have a compact footprint and low power consumption compared to traditional tank systems.
Machine Specifications| Model | Continuous Melter |
| Footprint | From: 49.2” [1250mm] x 70.1” [1780mm] Up to: 74.0” [1880mm] x 157.1” [3990mm] |
| Product Loading | Manual, Bulk Bag, Bucket Elevator |
| Product Formats | Wafers, Chips, Blocks and 1 Ton Blocks |
| Product Types | Compound, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Liquor, Dairy Butter, Shortening, Fat. |
| Standard Finish | Stainless Steel |
| Standard Controls | Allen-Bradley® CompactLogix™ PLC |