Move, dry, meter, blend, store, and recover plastic resin with one engineered material-flow plan—from railcar, silo, or gaylord to the extruder, molding machine, or compounder.
Gauge Advisor helps processors combine Advanced Blending Solutions equipment into a practical system for pellets, regrind, flake, powder, color, and additives. Start with the process problem, then size the equipment around the resin, throughput, layout, and operating goals.
Authorized Advanced Blending Solutions sales & applications support partner. Gauge Advisor helps translate resin, rate, layout, and changeover needs into an engineered system scope.
Meter & blend
Receive & move
Dry & condition
Review sources, destinations, rates, utilities, and controls together.
Test difficult pellets, regrind, flake, powders, and trim before final sizing.
Coordinate recipes, routing, conveying, trends, alarms, and reports.
Engineering, installation, commissioning, training, and ongoing support.
A complete material-handling project can involve several equipment families. Choose the symptom closest to yours for a useful starting solution—not a final equipment size.
Automate material movement with receivers, loaders, pumps, sequencing, and correctly sized convey lines.
Meter each component by weight and match the feeder to resin, regrind, flake, powder, color, or liquid.
Condition moisture-sensitive resin with controlled dry air, temperature, residence time, and material flow.
Use recipe verification, intelligent routing, barcode checks, cleanout, and controls to reduce manual connection errors.
Plan railcar unloading, silos, intermediate storage, level measurement, dust handling, and transfer capacity together.
Recover clean in-process trim and protect material flow with velocity control, traps, filtration, and magnets.
Answer a few questions about the material, process, throughput, and current problem. The selector narrows the equipment families worth reviewing; final sizing still requires an application engineer.
The exact order changes by plant and resin. The useful idea is to review the whole flow so one improvement does not create a new restriction somewhere else.
Railcar, truck, gaylord, drum, or reclaimed process material.
Silos, bins, mobile hoppers, drying hoppers, and level sensing.
Pumps, receivers, lines, valves, manifolds, and SMART distribution.
Dry air, temperature, residence time, filters, and material protection.
Gravimetric feeders, recipes, component ratios, and extrusion control.
Reliable machine feed plus qualified regrind or clean trim recovery.
These are starting system layouts, not an online quote. Resin behavior, simultaneous demand, distance, lift, bends, utilities, controls, and future expansion all affect the final design.
Move resin automatically from storage or conditioning equipment to one or many machines. The system must cover peak simultaneous demand—not just the average rate of one line.
A receiver is the vessel that separates resin from conveying air. Central receivers use a shared pump system; self-contained loaders include their own conveying source for simpler stations.
The pump creates conveying airflow. Sequence controls decide which receiver loads next, while a variable-frequency drive can adjust pickup velocity for different materials and routes.
SMART reduces common-line piping in complex plants and checks that the selected material source is connected to the correct destination before conveying begins.
A gravimetric system measures material by weight. ABS meters components continuously, so feeder selection and material behavior matter as much as the blender name.
SIMPLICITY meters multiple materials at the same time using Lightning vibratory or Thunder auger feeders. Standard base sizes are estimated from 500 to 6,000+ lb/hr, with actual performance dependent on the material.
The SL family places integral weighed downcomers (small weighed material hoppers) in a compact frame for throat or mezzanine installation. Current standard sizes are estimated at 200, 500, and 1,000 lb/hr.
Lightning feeders suit many free-flowing materials; Thunder augers address harder-to-meter materials. Chameleon 2.0 automates draining and cleaning on new blender configurations, while central vacuum cleanout supports broader cleanup workflows.
Important sizing note: published feed rates are estimates. Very light pellets, flakes, powders, high regrind content, poor-flowing additives, and hot materials can change performance. Representative material testing is the most reliable way to choose feeder geometry and operating range. Weigh hoppers and gravity, vacuum-takeoff, or continuous pressure/vacuum discharge options can be added when consumption data, extrusion control, mounting, or blend transport require them.
Drying is more than heater capacity. The resin must receive the required temperature, low-dew-point air, residence time, and airflow before processing.
The TD system uses three indexing desiccant beds and recovers residual regeneration heat into the process-air cycle. Current models cover estimated rates from 24 to 2,000 lb/hr, depending on resin and drying requirements.
The hopper holds resin in the dry-air stream long enough to reach the target condition. Loaders, receivers, filters, and takeoffs must preserve that condition while keeping material moving.
A dryer display can show whether air conditions are on target, but the part or pellet outcome still depends on the full material path. Trend dew point and temperatures, then compare them with resin handling and process changes.
Automation should make the operator’s job clearer. Start with the decisions the control must make, the data the plant needs, and what happens when a connection or condition is wrong.
Allen-Bradley or Beckhoff platforms can coordinate blending, vacuum sequence, pickup velocity, silo levels, extrusion throughput, layer ratios, SMART distribution, and custom plant functions.
Use data where it helps an operator act: confirm recipe connections, see material use by order or shift, investigate alarms, compare trends, and support troubleshooting without walking every line.
Box tilters keep material near the pickup wand, while barcode and light-guidance options help identify which container belongs at which source or destination.
Bulk projects are high-value because every bottleneck matters: unloading time, dust, pump duty, transfer method, silo capacity, level measurement, routing, and downstream demand.
Direct pull vacuums resin from the railcar to a receiver at the silo. Pull/push first vacuums resin to a receiver or cyclone, then pressure-conveys it to storage through a rotary airlock.
Storage may range from a mobile hopper beside the machine to custom welded or bolted silos. Cone geometry, material flow, access, venting, fill method, and level instruments must suit the resin.
Air filtration helps keep fine dust out of pumps and manages collected dust at bulk-transfer points. Differential-pressure feedback can trigger cleaning only when filters need it.
“Recycling” can mean very different things. ABS can feed and blend qualified regrind or flake and can repelletize clean in-process film trim; that is not the same as a complete post-consumer wash and recycling plant.
Sasquatch converts clean in-line film trim into pellets that can be evaluated for return to the production process. Current published configurations cover multiple trim rates, with actual output dependent on material and material trials recommended.
An angel-hair trap captures long melted stringers and helps locate where they form. Magnetic drawers remove ferrous metal before it reaches downstream equipment.
Regrind, flakes, powders, fibers, fillers, and film trim can bridge, segregate, dust, or feed differently from virgin pellets. A representative trial can expose those problems before equipment is committed.
Two projects often sit across several equipment families: measuring actual extrusion rate and modernizing an installed resin-handling system.
Measure actual resin consumption for rate monitoring, screw-speed control, or line-speed coordination.
Control extrusion throughput by weightEvaluate installed ABS and legacy Thoreson McCosh equipment for repair, controls upgrades, phased expansion, or replacement.
Modernize an existing or legacy systemThe equipment name is only the start. The inputs in the middle column determine whether the proposed system solves the real production constraint.
Swipe horizontally to compare all columns.
| Production symptom | Confirm first | Likely starting system | What it can improve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machines run empty | Peak simultaneous demand, route distance, lift, bends, line size, resin form | Receivers or loaders, pumps, sequence control, properly sized piping | Automatic machine feed and fewer material-starvation interruptions |
| Blend ratio or usage varies | Each component’s low/high rate, percentage, bulk density, flow, cleanout | SIMPLICITY or SL continuous gravimetric blender with matched feeders | Recipe consistency, material-use visibility, and controlled dosing |
| Moisture-related defects | Polymer, initial moisture, hourly rate, drying temperature, dew point, residence time | TD-Series dryer, CK hopper, matched loading and filtration | More stable material condition before molding or extrusion |
| Wrong material or changeover loss | Sources, destinations, recipes, connection method, operator steps, purge strategy | SMART distribution, barcode verification, Chameleon or central cleanout, controls | Fewer connection errors, faster repeatable setup, and lower residual waste |
| Angel hair or degraded pellets | Material temperature, pickup speed, line layout, impacts, bends, distance | VFD pickup-velocity control plus traps or filtration where needed | Reduced formation risk, captured stringers, and easier source diagnosis |
| Bulk-delivery expansion | Delivery rate, unloading time, number of silos, storage days, dust, routing | Direct-pull or pull/push unload, silos, dust collection, SMART, levels | Faster receiving, more capacity, and a scalable material-distribution plan |
| Clean film trim is discarded | Material, trim geometry, rate, contamination, thermal history, reuse objective | Sasquatch in-line trim repelletizer plus qualified return-to-process handling | Recovery of suitable post-industrial trim and reduced virgin-material demand |
This table identifies equipment families, not final sizes. Published throughputs are estimates and can change with bulk density, particle shape, moisture, temperature, additives, route geometry, simultaneous demand, and operating practices.
Application review begins with the process because extrusion, molding, and compounding place different demands on blend continuity, material residence time, machine loading, and changeover.
Continuous gravimetric blending, remote pressure convey, throughput control, layer-ratio control, central conveying, desiccant drying, and trim recovery can be coordinated around a continuous process.
Automatic machine loading, moisture conditioning, compact dosing, gaylord handling, recipe verification, and central material distribution help many machines share labor and utilities.
Powder, flake, filler, fiber, and regrind often require material trials, specialized feeders, dust handling, robust receiver geometry, magnets, and careful blending with virgin resin.
A resin handling system is a network. Gauge Advisor and ABS can review the plant flow, test difficult materials, develop layouts and controls, and support installation and commissioning.
Online tools can establish a preliminary scope. A final design still needs resin data, site layout, simultaneous demand, utilities, controls, and a review of failure modes.
Narrow the likely equipment families from the process and production problem.
Open full-screen selectorBuild a preliminary conveying-load estimate from rate, route, and system inputs.
Estimate pump demandCompare labor, material waste, downtime, energy, and production assumptions.
Build an ROI estimateReview the full ABS equipment portfolio and current manufacturer literature.
Browse ABS equipmentThese answers define the basic equipment roles. Final recommendations still depend on the actual material and plant.
We will review the complete material flow, identify the few equipment families that matter, and tell you what information or representative testing is still needed before a final recommendation.
Gauge Advisor is an authorized Advanced Blending Solutions sales & applications support partner. Published rates and capabilities are starting specifications; final performance depends on the material, equipment configuration, installation, and operating conditions.
