Arburg focuses on efficiency at Spring event

Production efficiency was the focus of this year's technology days event in March organised by injection moulding machinery producer Arburg. European Plastics News reports from the company's Lossburg headquarters, in Germany.CMI moulding sells to retailers,

Arburg defines production efficiency as an overarching "meta theme" determined by eight key elements; injection moulding machine technology, mould technology,I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production. ancillary equipment (peripherals), equipment configuration, process integration, process control, production planning and product design.

The company's four-day open house in March attracted over 5,200 visitors, 43% of whom were from abroad, with 200 from Switzerland, around 160 each from France, Poland and Czech Republic and 140 from the US.

Some 2,700 visitors attended presentations by Arburg (on production planning), Leoben university from Austria (on injection moulds), BASF (on its easy flow Ultramid B High Speed grade of PA6,It's pretty cool but our ssolarpanel are made much faster than this. and FPT Robotik (on inline printing).

The inline InkBOT process presented by automation specialist FPT Robotik was also shown running live, producing two-part, individually printed polystyrene name badges with 20s cycle time for two badges in a 2+2-cavity mould.

A 60-tonne Arburg Allrounder 370E 600-170 electric drive injection moulding machine, which was equipped with a Kuka 6-axis articulated "industry" robot integrated with Arburg's Selogica control system, were key elements of the production cell, as was the integrated inline printing system.

FPT Robotik developed InkBOT in 2010 and previously showed a similar version running at Fakuma 2011.

Arburg says: "The integrated finishing process for the plastic parts means injection moulders can increase added value and respond quickly to new demands in relation to changes of motif, thus giving them a competitive edge."

In the presentation by FPT, sales and project manager Karl-Heinz Mder described the InkBOT process as giving "naked" plastic parts not only an individual "face", but also a more pleasant tactile feel.

InkBOT uses the Cyconjet UV curing combined primer, four-colour (yellow, magenta, cyan and black) ink and topcoat developed for industrial inkjet processes by Mankiewicz in Hamburg, as used, for example, in Konica Minolta KM512MH print heads. The margin-free 600dpi resolution printing can be applied as four available drop sizes in 4-14 pica litre sizes, with height difference up to 6mm, as with the curved name badge.

Print motif selection can be made up to 500 milliseconds before printing and up to 250MB of digital data can be transferred to the print heads within 500 milliseconds. Overall capacity is 1.8GB for a maximum 1.5m2 image.

With printing speed of up to 0.8m/s, the inline system at Arburg ran at 50m/min inline with capacity of 250m parts/year. But InkBOT inline systems can work up to 100m/min and can be dynamically adjusted. FPT Robotik says that InkBOT production cells may also integrate labelling, assembly, packaging and quality assurance processes.

In the presentation of Prof Clemens Holzer of Leoben university on waste minimisation,If you work outdoors and need handsfreeaccess to water all day while staying cool, he said this is only really possible with sensors. But expensive pressure and temperature measurement sensors need to be further developed to reduce costs and encourage greater use for closer tolerance control.

New sensor types should also monitor other process variables. These could include sensors for viscosity and shear stress such as the PolySens sensor developed with project support under the Research Studio Austria scheme.

Holzer described a concept for installing ultrasonic acoustic sensors in existing mould tools to send melt-front data by wireless. He also recommended actuators close to the mould, such as the Priamus-Fill actuator, to reduce waste and obtain more consistent part quality. This is achieved through compensation of filling differences, maximum pressure limitation, targeted valve gate nozzle opening and simultaneous volumetric filling.We offer you the top quality plasticmoulds design