For cleaning container filling machines through utilization of cleaning-in-place
(C.I.P.) canisters that are inserted between rotating filling valves and their matching lift cylinders, the lift cylinders are arrested in their lowest end position by the C.I.P. canisters acting as spacers to allow the cam follower rollers to pass under the stationary lifting cam at a slight distance, while the C.I.P. canisters are held against the filling valve under pressure. The C.I.P. canisters thus remain pressed against the filling valves during the full rotation of the filling machine without the follower rollers being acted on by the lift cam.
A significant advantage of the invention is that it can be applied to existing filling machines without difficulty since it is only necessary to make up canisters that have a somewhat greater length than the bottles which are normally filled inthe particular filling machine.
Since, for functional and safety reasons, the lowest point of the lift cylinders on most common filling machines is generally lower than the lowest point of the lift cam, no special modification of the filling machine is necessary in this casewhere the canisters have such length as to prevent the cam followers from touching the stationary cam.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the machine described herein as a bottle filling machines can be adapted to the filling of other containers such as cans in which case it would only be necessary to modify the canisters inrespect to length and configuration at their upper ends for effecting a seal during cleaning.