Filling machines for lubricants, oils and greases
This is the sector where our machines are most widely installed: thirty-six projects, from single-line workshops to refinery blending plants. EXXONMOBIL, SHELL, TOTALENERGIES, REPSOL, HALLIBURTON, FUCHS, LUBRIZOL, QUAKER, INDIAN OIL and BHARAT PETROLEUM all fill on AiCROV machines, in Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Chile, Cameroon and Australia.
What they have in common is a product that is heavy, that changes with temperature, and that has to end up in the container at the exact weight on the label — in one-litre bottles, in 20-litre (5 gal) pails, in 208-litre drums and in IBCs (totes).
Density is the whole problem
An oil weighs what it weighs, but it does not always occupy the same volume. Heat it and it expands; cool it and it contracts. A volumetric machine set at 20 °C will underfill or overfill the same product at 35 °C without anything having gone wrong.
Every AiCROV machine fills by weight. The scale measures the mass that entered the container, whatever the temperature, whatever the viscosity, whatever the air. There is no compensation table to maintain and no calibration that drifts with the season.
There is a second consequence, and for a blending plant it is the bigger one: a weight filler needs no intermediate product tank. The nozzle connects straight to your pipe. Changing from one base oil or one additive package to the next means cleaning a nozzle, not a tank, a line and a three-way valve.
Grease: why it goes in from the bottom
Grease is the clearest illustration of why the filling method decides the result.
Fill it from the top and let it fall, and it drags air down with it. Because grease is dense, those bubbles do not come back up — they stay in, occupying volume without adding mass. The scale reads ten or fifteen kilos short of target while the container is already brimming over. Nothing has gone wrong with the dosing: the product went in mixed with air.
So we fill it the other way round. The nozzle goes down to the bottom of the container, opens there, and rises with the product, staying around twenty to twenty-five millimetres above the level as it comes up. No fall, no entrained air, and the weight on the scale is the weight in the container.
The same principle applies, less dramatically, to every viscous product in this group. More on how the filling method is chosen.
Hot products
Some of what this sector fills does not flow at room temperature. Greases, waxes, heavy bright stocks and certain additive packages are filled warm, and the machine has to be built for it.
AiCROV machines handle product temperatures from 0 to 130 °C. The nozzle is rated to 80 °C as standard, and up to 210 °C on request for special applications, with the wetted parts and seals specified accordingly. Where the process needs it, the filling unit is heated or traced so the product does not set in the nozzle between containers.
Tell us the temperature the product leaves your process at, and the viscosity at that temperature. Those two figures change the nozzle before anything else does.
A clean container is part of the job
A thread smeared with oil is a container that leaks in the warehouse, a label that will not stick and a pallet the customer photographs.
Viscous products string and drip when the nozzle closes, so the machine deals with it mechanically rather than hoping: anti-drip nozzle with positive closing, closing speed profiled to the viscosity, and the nozzle staying in position long enough for the product to break cleanly. Fine filling comes in at controlled flow and pressure so the last few hundred grams do not splash up the neck.
On open-mouth pails, the nozzle type matters as much as the speed. A push-type jet swings outward as it closes and will spray the rim; a pull-type nozzle brings the jet straight down. Why push and pull are not interchangeable.
One line, from a one-litre bottle to an IBC
Lubricant plants almost never fill one format. The same product goes out in retail bottles, in pails for workshops, in drums for industry and in IBCs for bulk supply.
- Bottles and small containers, from 1 litre, for retail and workshop packs
- Pails and buckets, 5 to 25 litres, the workshop format
- Drums and barrels, steel and plastic, 200 and 208 litres (55 gal)
- IBCs and totes, up to 1,500 litres (400 gal), for bulk and for blenders supplying other blenders
Every format has machines across the whole range, from semi-automatic to fully automatic. The recipe holds the parameters of each one, so changing format is a selection on the panel.
Weight that stands up to an inspection
Lubricants are sold in declared pack sizes and the trade is audited.
Every container is weighed, and AiCROVFill® fills in two speeds, checks the settled weight and tops up if it has fallen short. The weighing conveyors carry legal-for-trade approvals under OIML R61 and the Measuring Instruments Directive (MID, Annex MI-006), with CE-M marking. The machine records date, time, tare and net weight of every container in CSV, which is what an audit asks for and what a customer claim is answered with.
Which machine fits your line
Any AiCROV machine can fill these products. What decides which one you need is not what you fill — it is how many containers per hour you have to produce, in what format, and how much of the operation you want automated. Every container format, from a one-litre canister to a 1,500-litre IBC, has machines across the whole range, from semi-automatic to fully automatic.
What the product decides is everything inside the filling unit: whether it is filled by immersion or under the bunghole, the materials in contact with it, and how the nozzle itself is driven — push or pull, two-stage coarse and fine opening or proportional, and whether the process needs flow control and continuous pressure.
That is why our first step is a conversation and not a quotation. Tell us your output, your containers and your product, and the configuration follows.
LSG — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for jerrycans and small containers
Semi-automatic weigh filling machine for jerrycans and small containers. No installation: connect power, air and product, and it is ready to fill.
LSB — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for drums
Semi-automatic drum filling machine for 30 to 250 litres: it weighs every drum as it fills, comes preconfigured and is simple to run.
LSC — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for IBCs
For plants that only fill IBCs (totes): quick to set up and configure, and available in an explosion proof version.
SP1 — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for containers on a pallet
Semi-automatic weigh filling of jerrycans, drums and IBCs on a pallet: the operator positions the nozzle and the machine fills to the net weight.
SP2 — semi-automatic filling line for containers on a pallet, with conveyors
Semi-automatic filling of drums and IBCs on a pallet, from 20 to 1,500 litres, by weight, on a preconfigured machine.
SP25 — weigh filling machine with motorised nozzle positioning
This is the machine in the range where the operator stops moving the head by hand. Travel in X, in…
SP3 — automatic filling machine for drums and IBCs on a pallet
With the Robot Filler, this is the most automated machine we build. The operator does not intervene during the cycle…
Robot Filler — fully automatic robotic filling machine for drums and IBCs
Robotic filling of jerrycans, drums and IBCs on a pallet: 3D vision finds each container, then the robot uncaps, fills, caps and seals.
EL2-B — in-line automatic drum filling machine
Automatic in-line filling of steel and plastic drums from 60 to 250 litres, by weight, with uncapping, capping and sealing stations.
EL2-E — in-line automatic filling machine for jerrycans and small containers
Automatic in-line weigh filling machine for liquid and viscous products in metal or plastic canisters, pails and jerrycans with a rectangular base.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why weight and not volume for oils?
Because volume changes with temperature and weight does not. A volumetric machine calibrated at one temperature fills wrong at another; a scale measures the mass that went in, whatever the product was doing when it went in.
Can you fill grease?
Yes, and it is one of the products where the filling method matters most. The nozzle fills from the bottom of the container, rising with the level, so no air is dragged in and the weight on the scale is real product.
How hot can the product be?
From 0 to 130 °C. The nozzle is rated to 80 °C as standard and up to 210 °C on request for special applications, and the filling unit can be heated or traced where the product would otherwise set.
Will it drip on the threads?
Anti-drip nozzle with positive closing, closing profile matched to the viscosity, and controlled flow and pressure on the fine fill. On open-mouth pails, a pull-type nozzle so the jet comes straight down instead of spraying the rim.
Can the same line do one-litre bottles and 208-litre drums?
Yes, with the parameters of each format stored as a recipe. Which machine suits you depends on your output and your layout more than on the range of formats.
How much cleaning is there when I change base oil?
The nozzle. There is no intermediate tank, no feed pipework and no three-way valve to clean, because a weight filler does not need them.
Does the weighing hold up to a legal metrology inspection?
The weighing conveyors carry approvals under OIML R61 and the Measuring Instruments Directive (MID, Annex MI-006), with CE-M marking. Every container is weighed and can be recorded.
Tell us your product, its viscosity and the temperature it leaves your process at.
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