Pharmacy Pill Counter: The Complete Buying Guide in 2024

1.What Is A Pharmacy Pill Counter?

A pharmacy pill counter is an innovative equipment used for counting pills accurately. Side by side, this machine helps in filling of pills into their respective packaging containers. There’s no secret that every pharmacy consumes a huge time in the dispensing of pills, verifying the process, and counting them. Despite an easy solution, most people make this procedure time consuming by practicing old methods.

A pharmacy pill counter is the answer that emerged as the most advanced machine allowing pharmacists to perform the pill counting process easily, accurately, and rapidly. Thanks to technology, where pharmacy pill counter has offered a safer and better way that is capable of counting pill with reduced labor cost, and allow all therapeutic medicine and other products counted in a more standardized and scientifically technical way.

2.Where Do You Use The Pharmacy Pill Counter?

A pharmacy pill counter is a versatile machine that can be adjusted anywhere in the production facility to facilitate end-user. Surprised? Let’s find their uses in industrial and other sectors:

Pharmaceutical Industry

Pharmacy pill counter- picture courtesy- verywell health

This industry is a leader involved in counting and filling of pills, tablet, capsules, etc., therefore, most of the pharmaceutical industry use pharmacy pill counter to count medications of all sizes, shapes, and weights quickly and accurately with ideal packaging options.

Nutraceutical Industry

Pharmacy pill counter- picture courtesy- CAPSULIN

The nutraceutical industry are equipped with pharmacy pill counter to streamline the production cycle of manufacturing and packaging of supplements that are produced in the form of capsules, tablets, and pills., to improve counting and reduce the probability of errors.

Stationery Industry

Pharmacy pill counter- picture courtesy- stationery bazar

A pharmacy pill counter is referred to use in the stationery industry for counting stationery items like pencils toppers, fancy beads, sharpeners, office supplies, paper clippers, etc.,

Food Industry

Pharmacy pill counter- picture courtesy- Woolworth

In this industry, a pharmacy pill counter is used to count and filling of food products like gummies, nuts, chocolates, coffee beans, candies, and related products, this machine can cater products in bulk as well as medium to small quantities ensuring effective food packaging.

Veterinary Industry

Pharmacy pill counter- picture courtesy- EMPR

For any veterinary technician, filling and counting medication manually is always a tiresome job in the clinics. A pharmacy pill counter is the most affordable and versatile counter popular for veterinary clinics and offices worldwide due to its quick and effective counting of pills, tablets, and capsules to save staff time and energy.

Pharmacy

Pharmacy pill counter- picture courtesy- healthcare capsa

Pharmacies and retail supply firms are always hooked to pharmacy pill counter to simplify complex pharmacy in-patient and out-patient applications in a time-saving manner and with reduced dispensing error. One must keep in the mind that in hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, and other healthcare units, a minor error can be turned into a serious problem; therefore,  pharmacies prefer pharmacy pill counter to ensure patients are receiving error-free medicines every time.

Education

Pharmacy pill counter- picture courtesy- strive pharmacy

Many top education sectors and research centers use pharmacy pill counter due to their simplicity and accurate throughput on health campuses. All prestigious organization trust on pharmacy pill counter due to its effective, cost-friendly, and user-friendly features.

3.How is Pharmacy Pill Counter Useful?

Besides making your workload easier, a pharmacy pill counter is suitable investment that pay offs you in many different ways:

Speed Up Your Pill Counting

Every busy pharmacy and other relevant professional sector spend most of their time in counting pill for dispensing using a hand counter or manual method, such as a tray or spatula is one of the technical ways but it is tedious to perform for a longer term. But advanced pharmacy pill counter can help you in a fast and accurate way as every filled prescription is accurate and with improved output, volume, and efficiency.

NO Dangerous Errors

Picture Courtesy- The Guardian

A practical problem with a manual pill counter is as you increase the counting speed, it will likelihood to cause human error. Fill prescriptions or medicine with accuracy level is paramount in the healthcare sector. With a 99.99% accuracy level, a pharmacy pill counter is proven as the utmost equipment with no dangerous errors. So, now consumers and patients will have properly dispensed medicine with accurate quantity each time.

Employee Satisfaction

Picture Courtesy-Renvue

Nobody prefers joining any organization where they’re asked to spend their days counting pills. It will numb their minds with extra work pressure by focusing on accuracy. A pharmacy pill counter is a good solution where employees can enjoy their days accomplishing extra important tasks rather than wasting their energies in counting pills.

Accurate Counting

Committing a counting mistake can make you repeat the procedure again. The key benefit of a pharmacy pill counting machine is to save your time with accurate counting and improve high efficiency of a production line.

Prevention of Contamination

Pharmacy pill counter

With stainless steel body makeup, a pharmacy pill counter saves your product against cross-contamination or any risk of interacting with foreign particles that mostly stick with parts of the body. The machine has lesser contact with pills and does not cause any contamination to pills during counting.

4.What are Pharmacy Pill Counter Components?

Part	Description
Hopper	This is a storage container which is located at the top of the machine that helps in accumulating a bulk quantity of pills respectively, that release them once receive signals from the PLC system. It allows a fast and seamless flow of pills due to vibration or force of gravity that force down the pills for dispensing.
Alarm Lamp	A visual lamp indicator that alarms the operating user if any unusual condition meets and interrupts the production line e.g. error in equipment, process completion, emptying of hopper, or overheating of the machine, etc,.
Emergency Button	An emergency button that is featured with a high degree of safety ensures end user meet unexpected situations safely. Once you press an emergency button, the system stops working immediately and regulates seamless procedure.
Touchscreen	This is the user’s interface that can add and configure the protocol, and settings, troubleshoot, visualize the progress, and find important alerts through the procedure. A pharmacy pill counter featured safety alerts also received on the PLC touchscreen. Now, you can control the entire work process just by clicking the keys available on the screen.
Observe Window	Along with visual monitoring using cameras, an observing window is also equipped in the machine just behind the hopper and other parts of the machine such as feeding heads which are featured with transparent material allowing the user to see the area and movement or transportation of pill during the process. It is a gateway visualization of the insight process.
Filling Head	The number of pills enters the filling head where a camera/sensor visualizes the pills and sends them to the filling nozzle for precise dropping into containers.
Adjustable Filling Nozzle	Every container or bottle has a different shape or size. That’s why an adjustable filling nozzle is equipped in the machine that allows you to modulate the setting according to container and find direct counting and filling of the pill inside each container perfectly.
Adjustable Lift Holder	This part of the machine supports the filling head, hopper, or the upper part of the machine to the lower part that is involved the conveyor, electrical components, rejected unit, etc., The adjust features help in correcting the conveyor or height of the machine.
Adjustable Lift Screw Holder	The movement and alignment of the machine are entirely supported by adjustable lift screw holders that are responsible for fine-tuning of the lifting parts.
Lift Conveyor	The incoming and outgoing packaging containers for pill counting and the filling procedure are supported by a lift conveyor.
Sensor	Advanced or automatic pharmacy pill counters are featured with sensors that detect the presence of pills and mark them as counted and mention the message on the system. This unit helps in accurate and error-free dispensing of the pill.
Lift Base	The pharmacy pill counter machine is lifted in an upright position due to base of the equipment that offer smooth and reliable lifting by strong and fixed pads that are resistant to shock, vibration, and displacement.

5.How to Classify a Pharmacy Pill Counter?

There are various types of pharmacy pill counters that offer excellent mechanisms, designs, and features. We have simplified the following types of pharmacy pill counter for your understanding.

BASED ON AUTOMATION

In this category, we have further sub-classified the pharmacy pill counters:

Manual Pharmacy Pill Counter

Manual Pharmacy Pill Counter-Medium.com

This is the oldest and the most conventional method of counting pills using a tray and spatula. On the tray, you can pour a number of pills subjected to be counted and manually count them one by one by moving spatula and directing on the pill. This is the most simplest form of pill counter as well as pocket friendly too. But this way of counting pills is associated with some limitations as it is a tiresome method that required high focus, energy, and manpower. The most important drawback is it is not accurate and time-consuming. This is the preferable machine for short or small businesses that do not require any training.

Semi-Automatic Pharmacy Pill Counter

Semi-Automatic Pharmacy Pill Counter

This is a great way of catering to medium to large batches of pharmacy pill counting that will require less manpower and time. Here, you need to load the containers where machine counts and fill them. Once the pills are filled, you need to pick the containers and place the next one. This type of machine is featured with PLC featured that can work by interpreting infeed data by you. But, it would require continuous involvement of the user to load and remove the containers and place new packaging material. Overall, this machine gives you a fast and reliable outcome.

Automatic Pharmacy Pill Counter

Automatic Pharmacy Pill Counter

This is the most preferable equipment adopted by popular and competitive industries that strive to make their profitability and wants to run large batches day and night without requiring fixed operator involvement. This is an automatic solution where the user just has to click the keys using PLC and the remaining setup would be run be the machine. This machine offers the fastest and the most reliable counting outcomes than other available pill counting solutions.

BASED ON MACHINE DESIGN

Based on design, a pharmacy pill counter are categorized onto two basic types:

Rotary Pharmacy Pill Counter

Rotary Pharmacy Pill Counter

This is a machine where movement of pills are taken placed by a rotary bowl that are features with multiple channels inside that helps in alignment of the pills and counts them automatically. This machine has compact designing offering hassle-free counting options with more accuracy.

Multi-Channel Pharmacy Pill Counter

Multi-Channel Pharmacy Pill Counter

This is the most common design featured with multiple channels for transporting pills via continuous vibration in a gentle manner. This machine can cater to the pill counting process for large quantities and preferable option for large industries where a non-stop counting process is required.

BASED ON COUNTING HEAD

Based on counting heads, a pharmacy pill counter is divided into two types:

Single Head Pharmacy Pill Counter

Single Head Pharmacy Pill Counter

This machine has a single counting head that is preferred for moderate production sectors. This machine is featured with an automatic system accompanied end user with excellent working options such as a detector system, PLC control etc.

Multi Head Pharmacy Pill Counter

Multi Head Pharmacy Pill Counter 

This machine is the most suitable solution for running a production line with the greatest speed and accurate results. Here, the machine is equipped with multi head channels that ensure thousands of pills counting per hour.

6.How is Pharmacy Pill Counter Work?

A pharmacy pill counter works by the involvement of multiple steps such as:

STAGE 1 Infeed 

At this stage, pills are prepared to be counted and dispensed where they are fed into the system manually directly into the hopper of the machine.

The pills or tablets come on vibratory trays where the presence of a camera assesses the pill using various ways such as weight sensors and visualization using optical sensors to find the correct shape or appearance of the pills to be counted.

STAGE 2 Counting

The presence of pills are determined by detectors and add them as a count by the help of software that employed an algorithm to distinguish various types and size of pill as well as notify if any unwanted particle is present in the following tray.

STAGE 3 Dispensing

Each counted pill steadily transfers into the container for the final packaging of the product and send it to the next machine such as capping.

7.What Integrated Units of Pharmacy Pill Counter?

Running a pharmacy pill counting production line is not an easy task! But it is not impossible to drive it smoothly by creating a set of efficient and right machines. Read below for the recommended set of machine that can combinely make a better production line:

	Machine	Working
Bottle Unscrambler	Whether your packaging material is bottle, containers, jars, or small cans. A bottle unscrambler is worth-adding equipment that is used to position and correct the containers for the next machine ensuring a controlled flow of pills into the right container in a subsequent process.	Bottles from hopper enters into the feeding tray that upon vibrations or using compressed air orients the position and supply it onto a seamless channel that direct them toward next machine.
Pharmacy Pill Counter	This is main leader machine of the pharmacy pill counting production line that upon entrance of containers feed the accurate or assigned or pre-determined numbers of pills for packaging.	This machine works by a sensors system that detects and counts the presence of each pill knock down from the filling nozzles. Machine works by following a simultaneous mechanism of photo-electric sensors, vibratory channels and computerised system of recording and displaying data.
Desiccant Inserting Machine	An addition of moisture absorbing desiccant is sometime considered as optional step for various production industries. But when it comes to healthcare, food, and other field, this machine used and integrated after pharmacy pill counting machine to insert desiccant into each container to keep pills in favourable condition and protect them against progressing humidity inside.	A desiccant film which is supported by a dancer arm allow uncoiling of the strip automatically. The presence of cutting knives separate each strip and places each packet into individual container and sends it to the next machine.
Pill Capping Machine	To maintain the freshness, fragrance potency, and efficacy of the pharmacy pill dosage form, a capping machine is integrated soon after desiccant inserting machine that helps in securing containers by screwing caps around the bottle neck.	Machine works by using sucking caps from the hopper; by the help of torqu application, capping are mounted and twisted on the each container and tighten up to keep product safe.
Induction Sealing Machine	A tamper proof packaging is of paramount important when it comes to pack pharmacy pill. An induction sealing machine is a cost-effective solution that enclose the container and creates a secure seal around the product’s caps proving them safe and authtentic.	Machine works by inducing electromagnetic field that helps to warm the sealing layer embedded insight the caps of the products. Upon lowering down the temperature the melted sealing layers firms and cool down and binds to create a hermetic seal on the closure.
Labeling Machine	This machine plays important role in improve your brand and creating aesthetic appearance of the product. Label on each product convey brand’s name, information, dosage instruction, manufacturing, expiry date, and other relevant information.	The machine works by unwinding the roll, machine detects the presence of the container where label is pasted using via pressure sensitive method or glue adhesion method followed by pressing of label using pressing rolls present in the machine.

8.What Other Products Can Pharmacy Pill Counter Counts?

A pharmacy pill counter is versatile addition to run various products other than pharmacy; that’s the reason this machine offers a significant role in many other production sectors also. Lets’ find what other product can be counted using this robust machine.

Hard Gelatin Capsule	A hard gelatin capsule composed of a body and head filled with pellets, powders, and granules. This medication is commonly used after tablets can be counted accurately using the pharmacy pill counter.
Soft Gelatin Capsule	Hermetically sealed soft gelatin capsules are commonly used in the nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries and can be dispensed using this machine.
Tablets	The most commonly used solid dosage form can be counted and filled using a pharmacy pill counter. This machine is helpful in counting tablets of various shapes, sizes, and weights.
Gummy Candies	Elastic, sticky, and chewy gummy candies are another product that can be dispensed using a pharmacy pill counter. These candies are prone to stick but the present machine is made up of stainless steel that has minimum contact with candies and dispensed them fastly so it offers high protection and the product’s stable quality.
Lozenges	A small tablet that becomes dissolves in the mouth once you administer it. A pharmacy pill counter is useful in dispensing and counting these dosage form
Candies	Along with medication, tasty and sweet candies are filled in packaging sachet, pouches, and jars using pharmacy pill counters.
Coffee Beans	A pharmacy pill counter is also used to count and fill coffee beans and dispensed them in the assigned jars safely.

9.What Type of Packaging Material Can be Supported with Pharmacy Pill Counter?

A pharmacy pill counter can not only allow various products to cater but it is capable enough to count and directly fills various packaging material types as well. For example:

Jars

Whether plastic or glass jars, a pharmacy pill counter can deal with filling purpose with the bits of help of a conveyor that ensure easy infeed and outfeed movement of these materials.

Sachet

A pharmacy pill counter can count and fill the desirable product into respective sachet and send them for the further sealing procedure.

Stand-up pouches

This is one of the commonly used packaging material used for dispensing pills and other products like beans, candies can be compatible with pharmacy pill counter to achieve desirable outcomes.

Bottles

A pharmacy pill counter is compatible machine can allow bottles for packaging and storing the counted pills accurately.

10.What are the Problems and Troubleshooting of Pharmacy Pill Counter?

A pharmacy pill counter is an electronic device that can also encounters with some unwanted problems like other equipment. We have discussed some common problems and their easiest solutions below:

Pills are Filled but not Displayed

Picture Courtesy- Pharmafill USA

This is a common problem where the machine accurately fills the assigned number of pills but the system does not show it. It can be caused when a machine is operating for a longer time and other internal software needs to be updated.

To solve this problem re-calibrated the machine. Plus, re-install or re-update the software. Run the test procedure and re-check.

Jammed Pharmacy Pill Counter

Picture Courtesy- Deitz

This is another common trouble that interrupts the process where the machine system becomes stuck. This is commonly caused if a foreign particle or any broken parts of the pills got stuck in the moveable channels or units.

To fix the problem, we would recommend cleaning the movable parts such as the conveyor, filling nozzle, head of the counter by using dry cloth and compressed air. Make sure the pill transporting passage is cleared and restart the machine and intiate the process.

Inaccurate Counting of the Pills

Picture Courtesy- Cremer

This is the common problem with semi-automatic and automatic pharmacy pill counters where machines dispense an inaccurate counting of the medications. This problem can be caused due to improper loading or misalignment of the vibratory channels, hopper settings, or exposing parts that are dirty.

To solve the problem, reset and re-align the parts such as the hopper, and vibratory tray, and check the sensor of the machine. Plus, clean the machine and reassure that any debris is there or not. Start the machine and repeat the procedure to assess if everything is working properly.

11.What Points to be Considered for Purchasing Pharmacy Pill Counter?

When purchasing a pharmacy pill counter, one must go through the following consideration factors to avoid problems in purchasing the wrong one.

Economical

You must keep your pocket budget in your mind to buy the correct machine up to your requirements. If you have a limited budget, we recommend opting for digital or semi-automatic machines that can also be offering amazing features in a pocket-friendly manner.

Integrating with Other Units

Do you need a standalone machine or running a large production line? A buyer must know this factor to purchase a complete set of machines. For e.g, for integrating equipment you need conveyor belt options and connecting parts that would allow you to integrate the machine with other units in no time.

Production Capacity

What is need of user is the important point you must consider and pick the exact solution for it. Whether you’re running a small production process, or require dispensing of medication day and night. Then consider pharmacy pill counter that deals with moderate or high production capacity per each running session.

Size and Portability of the Machine

You must know the size of the required machine. Whether you have a small installation space or a large one is a prime factor you should discuss with the manufacturing company so they would design the planner and suggest the pharmacy pill counter that would easily install in your facility that must be featured with portability options.

Conclusion

A pharmacy pill counter is a versatile machine used for every production sector that deals with counting and dispensing solid dosage medications such as capsules, tablets, caplets, or food products like gummies, candies, etc., This is a promising addition that helps significantly in skyrocketing the business. For that choosing the right machine is always important that will take your business up to a greater level of achievement and success. So, why not invest in purchasing a ‘pharmacy pill counter’ machine? Please contact us to find amazing series of pharmacy pill counter with free consultations right now!