Problem & answerF-05
Bottles Stuck or Not Moving Forward
Also covers: Guide rails too tight
Likely causes
- Guide rails set too narrow for the bottle
- Rails not parallel (narrowing along the conveyor)
- Rails set at the wrong height (catching the shoulder or neck)
- Bent rail or loose rail clamp
How to fix it
- 1Stop the conveyor and remove stuck bottles.
- 2Loosen the rail clamps on both sides.
- 3Set each rail to the bottle with a small clearance: typically 1–2 mm per side (total 2–4 mm wider than the bottle).
- 4Check the rails are parallel along the whole run, including at the transfer between conveyors.
- 5Set rail height to the bottle body, below the shoulder.
- 6Tighten every clamp and run bottles by hand along the rails: they should slide freely without play.
- 7Run a production test.
Technical note
Rails that are too tight squeeze the bottles so the belt slides underneath them and they stop. Rails that are too loose let bottles turn and wedge 2–3 abreast (see F-06). Correct rails guide bottles in a single straight line.It is fixed when
Bottles travel freely in a straight single line with no stopping.
Stop it coming back
- Set and check rails at every bottle-size change; mark the settings for each bottle.
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