Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:20:45 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:39:14 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:


Karl Townsend wrote:

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:50:06 -0800, Tim Wescott
wrote:

On 02/23/2011 11:39 AM, Pete C. wrote:

Karl Townsend wrote:

I built ten little SS apple labeling units a few years ago. The
last unit polishing took maybe 20% of the time that unit one did.

When are you going to start laser marking the apples and eliminate all
the little stickers?

Laser marking hell -- when are they going to start genetically
engineering fruits so the bar codes just show up on the skins?

Both great ideas. I'd just settle for some way to keep from getting
little tiny apple stickers all over everything. And find a use for the
miles of siliconed ribbon that the lables came on.

The laser marking is supposed to be the solution to all those little
stickers. It's not my idea, they've been testing the technology already,
I've seen news reports on it.

I've marked a few of the very best Jazz apples with a company logo
using my wee CO2 laser. Went over very well with the founder.

It's supposed to work quite well, be more "green" since it eliminates
all those labels and carrier tape, and for the producers/processors,
being a non contact process it eliminates all the jamming and
mislabeling issues with the labeling machines. There is a good reason
nearly every other food product has it's packaging marked by laser or by
inkjet.

Marking is all fine and good, but the bar code scanner has to be able
to pick it up for it to be really useful. I've not tested that. Laser
marking of ICs is barely readable by humans at times (particularly
humans with aging vision and less than 2,000 lux on the surface and
inability to tilt the surface just right).

Produce very often does not have a barcode, just a PLU number. I know
they have been testing the laser marking of fruit and the like as a way
of eliminating all the little stickers, I don't know how far it's
progressed since I'm not in that business.