scope:

This European Standard deals with all significant hazards,hazardous situations and events relevant to food depositors asdefined in to and the equipment typically integrated into them,i.e. product pumps, product elevators, conveyors and indexingmechanisms, when they are used as intended and under conditions ofmisuse which are reasonably foreseeable by the manufacturer (seeClause 4). This European Standard deals with the significanthazards, hazardous situations and events during transport, assemblyand installation, commissioning, use and decommissioning as definedin EN ISO 12100. NOTE 1 According to the clause which is referredto, "use" includes "setting, teaching/programming or processchangeover, operation, cleaning, fault finding and maintenance".NOTE 2 Although this standard is intended to apply to depositorsused in the food industry, many of its requirements can also beused for similar machines used in other industries. This EuropeanStandard is not applicable to the following machines:- augerdepositors or auger fillers and gravimetric filling machines,safety requirements for these machines are contained in EN 415-3; -automatic dough dividers, safety requirements for these machinesare contained in EN 12042; - filling machines for sausages, safetyrequirements for these machines are contained in EN 12463; -mincing machines, safety requirements for these machines arecontained in EN 12331; - food depositors that are poweredexclusively by manual effort. This document does not deal with thehazards related to the use of food depositors in a potentiallyexplosive atmosphere. This European Standard is not applicable tofood depositors that were manufactured before the date of itspublication as a European Standard. Types of food depositorsGeneral This European Standard deals with five different types offood depositors. These machines can be free standing machines or beassemblies incorporated into other machines e. g. pie and tartmachines. Food depositors may work fully automatically integratedwith a product conveyor or product indexing mechanism orsemi-automatically discharging a deposit when required by anoperator. Piston depositor A piston depositor typically comprises ahopper, a rotary valve, a product measuring chamber in the form ofa piston and a product dispensing valve. Some piston depositorsincorporate several product measuring chambers and dispensingvalves. Some designs dispense the product directly from the rotaryvalve without the use of a separate product dispensing valve. Thevolume of product dispensed is varied by altering the stroke of theproduct measuring chamber piston. Piston depositors are used tofill liquids, liquids containing solids in suspension and pastes.The product dispensing valve may be attached rigidly to thedepositor or using a flexible pipe and in some cases is held by theoperator. When the chamber has been filled with product the flow ofproduct is stopped either by moving the chamber or using a productcutting device. The chamber is then discharged through the bottomof the chamber either by moving the chamber or by moving a plate inthe base of the chamber. The volume of product dispensed is variedby altering the volume of the chamber. Chamber depositors aretypically used to deposit free-flowing products like cooked rice orpasta.