DANA® api MATIC 500 honey filling machine

01 · DOSING

It does not weigh the jar: it pumps the dose

This is the question we get most across the whole DANA family: the machine has no scales. The pump turns just enough to deliver the amount you programmed. That is calibrating — fill one, weigh it separately, correct — and the 20 programmes then hold each format.

The practical consequence: if the density or the temperature of the honey changes, the dose drifts. Cold honey and warm honey do not come out the same. Check the weight at the start of every run and whenever you change batch.

02 · PRIMING

It draws from the bucket on the floor, and when not to

The pump is self-priming: it lifts honey from floor level, so you drop the tube into the honey tank or the bucket and get on with it, with no platform or stand to build.

For a small room that is the handiest setup, and it works. But for best performance the manufacturer recommends the opposite: the container above the pump head, gravity-fed. The 10-litre hopper for that is sold separately.

A 50 mm drum suction tube will not screw onto the BS 1½" thread: what fits is the 38 mm hose from the box. It gives around 200 kg/h, roughly 400 jars of 500 g an hour.

03 · FORMATS

From 10 g, and what ± 2 g really means

The range starts at 10 g with no upper limit: the same head fills a tasting jar and a drum, just by changing the number. It shares its minimum dose, its ± 2 g and its 20 programmes with its bigger sister, the DANA 1000 — what changes between them is throughput, weight and what comes in the box.

Stated accuracy is ± 2 g per dose, and it is worth reading as a proportion rather than in absolute terms: on a 500 g jar that is 0.4%, but on a 30 g miniature it is already 7%. For tasting portions or gift jars, expect to set the programme above nominal and to put the run across the scales.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is not the bare machine: the box also holds

· 1.5 m of 1½"/38 mm hose · 1½" bent hose nozzle · 1½" hose clamp

· complete valve with Ø20 cross-cut nozzle · 2 BS 1½" union nuts · 0-60 ml dosing syringe · power cable

⚠ PRECAUTIONS

A gear pump works on clean, pre-filtered honey: wax and crystals score the gears and throw the dose out. Air does the same from the suction side — the pump measures volume, and a bubble comes out as a light jar: prime until no air is left in the hose. And what kills a filler is honey drying inside the pump head, so the parts in contact come apart for washing.

On temperature the honey decides, not the machine: above about 40 °C HMF starts to climb, and the general limit is 40 mg/kg, so there is nothing to gain by bottling hotter even if it flows better. For anything other than honey, or above that temperature, ask us first.