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Tablets & Capsules May/June 2021 35 Today's detectors can monitor activity and provide feedback about the equipment's performance while also pushing data for electronic records. This information is vital for streamlining supplier audits and warning opera- tions personnel of potential equipment failures to reduce downtime and properly schedule predictive maintenance. Accordingly, metal detectors are increasingly being con- nected to information systems in smart facilities. T&C Ray Spurgeon Jr. (814 835 6298, rspurgeon@eriez.com) is the product manager for the metal detection division at Eriez Magnetics, Erie, PA. Spurgeon has more than 20 years of experience in applying metal detection technology in the pharmaceutical, rubber, plastics, food, aggregate, and mining industries. common with wire or long, thin metal objects, such as broken tablet press dies. As stated earlier, a metal detector has one transmit- ter coil and two receiver coils. Each of these can trigger a detection. In a typical coil architecture, the coils are wrapped completely around the aperture, as shown in Figure 5. The blue directional arrows depict how a prod- uct would pass through the detector's horizontal aperture. (Note that, though we are limiting our discussion to horizontal- style metal detectors, the orientation effect applies to vertical systems as well.) Consider a metal fragment from a broken tablet press die that is long and thin like a piece of wire. The fragment has two main dimensions, diameter and length. How such a fragment is oriented when passing over the metal detec- tor's coils has a profound impact on its detectability. When the fragment's orientation is favorable, the detector can easily detect the metal; when the fragment's orientation is unfavorable, the metal is more likely to pass undetected. Further, it is difficult to calculate the detectability of a wire-shaped object, which is why metal detector man- ufacturers use spherical test pieces with no orientation to measure metal detector sensitivity. The orientation effect is an unavoidable limitation in today's state-of-the-art metal detectors. However, a metal detector's sensitivity is linear to its opening, so specifying the smallest aperture possible can help to reduce the ori- entation effect and provide better detection. Internet of things Finally, the internet of things (IoT)—the network of connected "smart" devices that communicate seamlessly over the internet—is transforming manufacturing facil- ities across the globe. For pharmaceutical processors, connected metal detectors can transmit useful information across multiple process lines and provide valuable data. Figure 5 Typical metal detector coil architecture Receiver coil 2 (-) Transmitter coil Receiver coil 1 (+) SILSOL IDEAL CURES PVT LTD INSTACOAT CFC – Chewable Fast Coating ECOPOL - Pharma Acrylic Polymers for enteric coating SYLOID 244FP, XDP ™ ® ® ® 3050 3150 6035 Silcon Dioxide Absorbents and Solubility Enhancers Sign up now by emailing kmyers@cscpub.com your name, company, and email address. To see a sample, please visit our website.