Packaging and strapping machines in Coimbatore

Castings, and why the pallet is the problem

A casting concentrates its weight in a small footprint. Put four on a pallet and the pallet is carrying a load that is heavy, high in density and low in friction — it wants to slide rather than to settle.

Film alone will not hold that. What holds it is strap, applied through the pallet or round the load and the pallet together, at a tension a hand tool struggles to reach. That is the job of a pneumatic strapping tool: it runs on compressed air, tensions, seals and cuts the strap in a single operation, and gives the same tension on every casting pallet.

Where the parts are boxed first and the boxes palletised, a semi automatic strapping machine handles the boxes and the pneumatic tool handles the pallet. Most Coimbatore units that ship castings end up with both, and it is worth planning for that rather than discovering it.

With castings, everything rests on the strap you specify. Its breaking strength follows from its width and gauge, so it must suit both the pallet weight and how far the load is going — give us both figures.

Moving weight on a foundry floor

No pallet truck has a tougher life than on a Kurichi or Singanallur foundry floor, with sand, swarf and oil underfoot and concrete that has long since stopped being level. The wheels give out first, and well before their time.

On that kind of floor polyurethane load wheels outlive nylon by a wide margin, so ask for them when you order. Leave headroom on capacity too, above your heaviest casting pallet: a truck that always works at its limit wears through its hydraulic seals quickly, and replacing a seal kit amid foundry sand is nobody's idea of a good day.

Oil, coolant and quench-fluid drums call for a drum carrier and lifter fitted with a safety lock that is kept in working order, and the loads that fit neither a pallet nor a drum go on material handling trolleys.

Textile machinery and the long awkward load

Coimbatore's textile machinery units ship assemblies that are long, heavy and will never go through an arch — shafts, beams, frames and complete sub-assemblies.

These are crated rather than boxed, and the packing machinery that matters is the strapping tool applied to the crate, plus edge protection where the strap crosses a corner. Nothing about that is exotic, and a supplier who tries to sell you a machine for it is selling you the wrong thing.

Where sub-assemblies are boxed and palletised, ordinary carton and pallet work applies, and a turntable stretch wrapper earns its place on the finished pallet — mainly to keep dust and moisture off during a long journey rather than to hold the load, which the strap is doing.

Buying two thousand kilometres from the works

Few of our domestic deliveries go further than Coimbatore, and the distance does make a difference, so here is plainly what it involves.

The machine leaves run-tested and is packed for the journey, which is heavier packing than a machine going to Delhi gets.

Two habits take the sting out of the distance. Keep the handful of cheap wearing parts whose failure would halt production in your own store, and the distance stops mattering at all. And when a fault appears, phone us instead of emailing — standing at the machine while we talk it through usually sorts the problem in one call.

Where the machines go in Coimbatore

The industrial areas here are dispersed rather than concentrated: SIDCO Industrial Estate at Kurichi, the Peelamedu and Ganapathy belts, Singanallur, Mettupalayam Road towards Annur, and the newer plots at Kaniyur and along the Avinashi Road corridor towards Tiruppur.

Kurichi and Singanallur are foundry and machining; Peelamedu is lighter engineering and increasingly services. The Avinashi Road corridor runs into Tiruppur's knitwear belt, which is an entirely different packing problem and closer to what this site describes for Ludhiana.

Spares, warranty and what distance changes

Being far away alters nothing in your warranty, and our stores carry wearing parts for each model in the range. The one difference is how much it makes sense to keep at your own unit — for a strapping machine, a heating element and a set of strap guides; for a pneumatic tool, a spare tension wheel and cutter; for each pallet truck, wheels and a seal kit.

When you order a spare, attach a picture of the worn part. Different suppliers call the same part by different names, but a picture is unambiguous — and a wrong part shipped to Coimbatore loses you a week, not a day.