Plastic bottles sloshing at capper. Ideas?

Manufacturing News
#1

I am a maintenance technician at a chemical plant that, among other products, produces and bottles nasty acidic stuff (details omitted to protect the incompetent, lol).

We have a line that is less than a year old, and we are still trying to work out its problems. Filled plastic bottles slosh out a bit of liquid when they reach the capper. The capper registers them in position with L-shaped, uh, holders mounted to stopper cylinders. Holders pop out, bottle slides into position, the conveyor stops, the caps go on, and the holders retract and the conveyor starts again.

I am wondering about the best way to decelerate the bottles more slowly. Is a compression spring the answer here? My job title is ‘mechanic’, but my background is electronics and sometimes my mechanical intuition fails me completely. I need some sort of bumper I guess.

I am playing with a compression spring here at my desk, and it seems like it would work.

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#2

The spring will push back on the bottle, but the bottle may tip back, not sure how it is held to the conveyor. Since the conveyor and all the bottles are all a large mass moving at once, a compression spring probably isn’t the best option. I recommend the belt be decelerated by the belt controller. Place another sensor to tell the controller when a bottle is getting close enough.