Welcome to the ENGEL stand at Fakuma 2014

Transcription

1 Hall A5 (A5-5204) and the East Foyer Welcome to the ENGEL stand at Fakuma 2014 Schwertberg, Austria August Barrier-free mould area, compact manufacturing cells and a high capacity for innovation: ENGEL will be celebrating 25 years of tie-bar-less technology at Fakuma 2014, which takes place in Friedrichshafen October With numerous innovative applications on show, the injection moulding machine manufacturer will use the event to demonstrate how tie-bar-less machines can continue in future to meet the highest demands in terms of efficiency and costeffectiveness. The new tie-bar-less, all-electric ENGEL e-motion 50 TL will also be making its world premiere in Friedrichshafen. Other innovations on show at the ENGEL stands will include double technology integration and the ENGEL e-flomo closed loop temperature-control water distribution system. 25 years of ENGEL tie-bar-less technology 'The clamping unit of an injection moulding machine has four tie-bars.' Since the first singlescrew injection moulding machine was developed in 1956, this design principle was regarded as inviolable but when ENGEL unveiled a tie-bar-less machine at the K 1989 plastics trade show in Düsseldorf, the innovation by the Upper Austrian company was greeted with astonishment and even ridicule; there were plenty of arguments against it. Twenty-five years on, tie-bar-less injection moulding machines represent one of ENGEL's biggest revenue sources. Underlining the outstanding success of the new design principle, more than 60,000 tie-barless machines have been delivered around the world. Machines offering large platen faces and free access to the mould area meet the need for high efficiency and cost-effectiveness in injection moulding production more closely than any other design. Now ENGEL is set to celebrate this success story with a special presentation in the East Foyer at Fakuma

2 An ENGEL victory 330/80 tech injection moulding machine fitted with energy efficient ecodrive drive technology and the new CC300 control unit will produce fittings for drainage systems an application designed to showcase the advantages of tie-bar-less technology to best effect. Although the mould provided by ifw-kunststofftechnik (Micheldorf, Austria) is of substantial size with its large core-pulls, it can still be attached to the 80-ton machine quickly and conveniently. When you used a traditional machine with tie-bars, a large machine with minimum clamping force of 150 tons would be needed to fit the bulky mould. You would also need to remove a tie-bar or disassemble the core-pulls to set up the mould, which took a lot of time, says Franz Pressl, Product Manager for tie-bar-less ENGEL victory injection moulding machines. With no tie-bars to interfere with the mould in the ENGEL victory, mould mounting platens can be used up to their edges and very large moulds can be mounted on relatively small injection moulding machines. This enhances overall efficiency, says Pressl. Smaller machines require less energy, and most importantly take up less space. Machines with no tie-bars offer particular benefits in the production of large components with complex, three-dimensional structures as well as multi-component applications; they are also advantageous in the case of multi-cavity moulds. Because of the pressure of costs in many sectors, the number of cavities is rising and moulds are getting bigger. Compared to mould size, though, the actual clamping force requirement has remained relatively low in the production of technical parts, underlines Franz Pressl. Tie-bar-less technology has enabled us to turn the tide of spiralling costs and make plastics processing firms more competitive by installing smaller machines. Even in its 25th year, tie-bar-less technology has its finger on the pulse. Teletronics: Higher productivity per square metre of production space At the Teletronics section of the ENGEL stand, a new tie-bar-less and all-electric ENGEL e-motion 50 TL will produce 15-pin plug housings from fibreglass-reinforced PBT/ASA using a two-cavity mould. The trend towards ever higher productivity per square metre of factory space is continuing, emphasises Heinz Rasinger, Vice President of ENGEL's Teletronics business unit. The electronics industry also has extremely high demands as regards precision. The 15 contact pins in the finished connector, for example, are very close together, and the moulded grid structure is equally fine with wall thicknesses and edge lengths in the 2

3 region of micrometres. In this market segment, all-electric machines are the standard. To offer highly compact manufacturing cells, ENGEL combines all-electric drive technology with a tie-bar-less clamping unit in its ENGEL e-motion TL small machine range. Having unveiled the ENGEL e-motion TL with an initial clamping force of 30 tons at K 2013, ENGEL will be upgrading the new series to include a 50-ton version at Fakuma As with the smaller variant, the new ENGEL e-motion 50 TL features a one-piece machine frame that makes the injection moulding machine lighter and more compact than comparable all-electric machines of other types. The design also guarantees very high platen parallelism and even distribution of clamping force. The small, all-electric ENGEL e-motion TL machines are concrete proof that even after a quarter of a century, the concept of tie-bar-less injection moulding machines has room for innovation, says Heinz Rasinger. We believe there is a great deal of potential for tie-barless injection moulding machines in the electronics industry. Many electronic components such as plug housings are parts with complex, three dimensional structures requiring bulky moulds with slide units and core-pulls but relatively low clamping force because of the somewhat small part surfaces projected. In many applications, the fact that the mould mounting platens on a tie-bar-less machine can be used up to the edges means that a smaller machine can be used than the mould size would normally dictate and this drives up productivity per square metre of factory space. Automotive: Technology integration opens new vistas of quality The trend of process integration as a path to greater efficiency, safety and quality is well established. Now it is necessary to adopt a more diversified stance. The object is no longer simply to integrate process steps upstream or downstream of injection moulding, but also to combine different process technologies with one another. To produce centre console components in PC-ABS at its trade show stand, ENGEL will be using an ENGEL duo 2550/550 injection moulding machine with integrated ENGEL viper 20 robot to combine two technologies: ENGEL foammelt, the MuCell foam injection moulding process developed by Trexel of Wilmington in the USA, and ENGEL variomelt, a variothermal injection moulding process. For the first time, this will enable us to produce thin-walled parts with very high quality sur- 3

4 faces and excellent fine structure reproduction at the same time in a single injection moulding step, promises Franz Füreder, Vice President of the Automotive business unit at ENGEL. To demonstrate the versatility of this amalgamation of processes, the sample part will have varying wall thicknesses and surface structures. The mould for the variothermal process demonstration will be supplied by ENGEL's partner Roctool (Le Bourget du Lac, France). Thanks to ENGEL foammelt the cavity, including the undercuts, is completely filled, and the component has no sink marks after cooling; meanwhile variothermal temperature control provides a high gloss finish. Away from applications aimed at car interiors, integrating ENGEL foammelt and variomelt opens up new vistas of efficiency and quality for white goods and household products. The new design of the ENGEL duo injection moulding machine will be unveiled at Fakuma Users will benefit in particular from improved ergonomics thanks to a lower operating height and easier access to the mould and nozzle area. Other features of the new machine generation include roller rail systems for the moving platen, energy-efficient mould movement and a much cleaner mould area thanks to the discontinuation of central lubrication. The ENGEL viper linear robot has also had a technical makeover for Fakuma, whereby it was adapted to the new CC300 control unit for ENGEL injection moulding machines. Thanks to the update, the speed, flexibility, compactness, energy efficiency and ease of use of the robots have all improved; even the standard version is fitted with a multidynamic drive package, which draws together the former load, regular and speed packages. Meanwhile the new C70 seven-inch hand-held touch terminal replaces the old C35 and C100 terminals; weighing in at 950 grams, the C70 is one of the lightest hand-held control devices of its size on the market. The sides of the robots have been adapted to the new design of the ENGEL machine control unit, ensuring a consistent operating system and uniform presentation. All robot settings can be performed using the hand-held unit or the injection moulding machine's operating panel; key setting parameters for the machine can also be displayed on the C70. Packaging: All-electric for maximum performance ENGEL's Packaging business unit will be presenting an all-electric injection moulding machine in Friedrichshafen. 500 ml food containers will be produced on an ENGEL e-motion 440/160 featuring a 2-cavity mould by Glaroform (Näfels, Switzerland). In-mould labelling 4

5 (IML) will be used to decorate the packaging; to do this, ENGEL will collaborate with partner company BECK automation (Oberengstringen, Switzerland). The steady enhancement of the ENGEL e-motion series is serving to establish the machines in the field of high performance applications for the packaging industry, says Kurt Hell, Sales Manager at ENGEL Packaging. The newest machine generation is able to achieve cycle times of well under three seconds and injection speeds of more than 500 mm per second, thereby combining maximum performance with maximum energy efficiency. The closed system for toggle lever and spindle always guarantees optimal, clean lubrication of all moving machine components. This makes the ENGEL e-motion the preferred machine type even in regulated areas such as food packaging production. Medical: Process integration for safety In the Medical section of its stand at Fakuma 2014, ENGEL will be producing drip chambers with integrated filter for blood transfusions. An ENGEL e-victory 310H/80W/50V 160 combi tri-component injection moulding machine with ecodrive and a clean room design will be used in this highly integrated production process. Each drip chamber will comprise one ABS and one PP component; in a single workstep, they will be injection moulded, fitted with the filter and joined by means of overmoulding with additional polypropylene. This high degree of integration significantly boosts efficiency in the manufacturing of multi-component hollow bodies with inlays. Conventionally, the two hollow body components are individually injection moulded; the inlay is then fitted and bonded in subsequent process steps. Drip chambers are mass-market products that need to be manufactured economically despite the stringent demands on product safety and hygiene, says Christoph Lhota, Vice President of ENGEL's Medical business unit, underlining the importance of the innovation. We believe there is potential for this innovative one-shot process in other sectors too, such as the production of fuel filters in the automotive field. One key prerequisite in realising the integrated process is servoelectric drive technology for all movements of the index plate mould; this facilitates the synchronous control of mutually independent movements. For this application, the mould manufacturing partner is Hack Formenbau (Kirchheim, Germany). 5

6 An ENGEL easix multi-axis robot is also integrated in the manufacturing cell along with a system for total quality control. The drip chambers are inspected for seal tightness directly after injection moulding. Technical Moulding: Efficient use of LIM multi-component processes The main demands as regards the processing of liquid silicone (LSR) are that it must be fully automatic, waste-free, low in burrs and require no reworking. An ENGEL e-victory 200H/80W/120 combi injection moulding machine automated with an ENGEL viper 20 linear robot will impressively show that ENGEL system solutions not only meet these requirements fully, but also handle LIM multi-component processes securely and efficiently. A mould provided by ACH solution (Fischlham, Austria) will be used to produce sensor housings for flow measurement with integrated seals. We can guarantee maximum precision by using servo-powered injection units, says Leopold Praher, head of sales for elast/lim machines at ENGEL AUSTRIA. Normally the LSR field requires special solutions where very small injection unit volumes are involved. In this case we meet that need with a standard unit. Developed and patented by ENGEL, iq weight control software applied in the system recognises and automatically compensates for fluctuations in melt quantity during the actual injection process. The tie-bar-less technology of the ENGEL e-victory machine also makes a decisive contribution to high process stability in this application, while the patented force divider evenly introduces force to the mould across the platen face. Both outer and inner cavities are thereby kept closed with precisely identical force, significantly reducing mould wear and raising product quality. On top of this, free access to the tie-bar-less machine's mould area facilitates the most effective automation concepts. ENGEL plus: Controlled conditions At the Fakuma event, ENGEL will devote a special presentation area to ENGEL plus, the name for its service products and optimisation tools. The main theme of the display will be intelligent mould temperature control. Although mould temperature control has a major influence on the productivity of the manufacturing process as well as component quality, we tend 6

7 to pay too little attention to this aspect, emphasises Wolfgang Degwerth, head of the Customer Service division at ENGEL AUSTRIA. ENGEL prompted a rethink when it developed ENGEL flomo in The compact temperature-control water distribution system has manual settings and can be integrated into a machine; electronic monitoring has increased process reliability and simplified process optimisation in more than a thousand new machines to date. For Fakuma 2014, ENGEL will be taking the next step from process monitoring to process control. The newly developed ENGEL e-flomo has electric control valves that make it possible to adjust and control flow rates fully automatically; ENGEL will demonstrate this live at the trade fair. ENGEL e-flomo keeps the temperature in the mould constant throughout the production period, even where water pressure varies, says Degwerth. This results in greater efficiency, process reliability and consistently high product quality. ENGEL and partners: lean and environmentally friendly ENGEL's green machines and system solutions will not only be displayed at the machine manufacturer's own stands at Fakuma 2014: seven partner companies will be using ENGEL systems to showcase their own innovations, including the Kunststoff-Institut Lüdenscheid, EHLEBRACHT Kunststoff-Technik and ROS. The Kunststoff-Institut Lüdenscheid will be demonstrating tie-bar-less production at stand 5312 in hall A5. An ENGEL victory 200/50 spex injection moulding machine will be used to produce business card boxes using the thermoplastic foam injection molding process. With this application, the Kunststoff-Institut Lüdenscheid will present a passive Greenmold concept that works without an additional active heat source and can fully suppress the formation of streaks even at approximate mould wall temperatures of 60 C. Greenmold is a selfregulating system for variothermal processes that combines advanced energy efficiency with high standards of component surface quality. EHLEBRACHT Kunststoff-Technik, a company based in Enger, Germany, will use an ENGEL victory 200/50 injection moulding machine to demonstrate the highly economic production of surface-finished plastic parts in hall A1 (stand A1-1205). Together with partner exhibitors pi4_robotics (Berlin, Germany) and Impact Coatings (Linköping, Sweden), the company will show how the injection moulding process, surface finishing and handling (including quality assurance) can be integrated in an efficient and space-saving manner. Parts 7

8 with complex, three-dimensional structures will be manufactured in an interlinked process. Following injection moulding, an ENGEL viper robot will remove the plastic components and place them on a conveyor belt; the parts will then pass to a humanoid pi4_workerbot with integrated visual inspection system from pi4_robotics. Following an initial quality test, the robot will place the parts in a PlastiCoater 200 PVD metallisation unit supplied by Impact Coatings to provide the plastic components with a chrome coating. The humanoid robot will then remove the parts, which will be subjected to a further quality check before the finished products are placed, again automatically, on a packaging tray. Inline coating enables the highly integrated manufacturing cell to set new standards of efficiency in the production of metallised plastic products while helping to reduce the risk involved with chrome compounds significantly. ROS, a company based in Coburg, Germany, will focus on precise moulding for particularly complex component geometry. An all-electric ENGEL e-motion 200/110 injection moulding machine with integrated ENGEL viper 12 robot will produce impellers for use in automobile coolant pumps in hall A5 (stand A5-5104). The aim in developing this component, which won the TecPart prize for innovation in 2013, was to achieve high pump capacity with very small component sizes. Various methods were combined to enable the demoulding of extreme undercuts; amongst other things, the slide units follow two overlapping circular tracks. ENGEL at 2014: Hall A5, stand A years of ENGEL tie-bar-less technology: East Foyer, stand FO-03 8

9 25 years of ENGEL tie-bar-less technology A success story: ENGEL will celebrate 25 years of tie-bar-less technology at Fakuma. More than 60,000 tie-bar-less injection moulding machines are now in use around the world. Thanks to their large platen faces and free access to the mould area, the machines do justice to the requirement for high efficiency and economy in injection moulding. Teletronics The ENGEL e-motion 50 TL combines all-electric drive technology with a tie-bar-less clamping unit on a small footprint. The new machine will demonstrate its high precision by producing plug housings at the trade show. Automotive ENGEL will be using an ENGEL duo large-scale machine to integrate two different process technologies: ENGEL foammelt and ENGEL variomelt. This results in very high quality surfaces and excellent reproduction of fine structures. 9

10 The speed, flexibility, compactness, energy efficiency and ease of use of the ENGEL viper linear robot have all improved for Fakuma The new C70 seven-inch hand-held touch terminal is one of the lightest on the market. Packaging All-electric ENGEL e-motion machines are being used for more and more high performance applications in the packaging industry. An ENGEL e-motion 440/160 with integrated in-mould labelling will produce 500 ml food containers at Fakuma. Medical ENGEL will produce drip chambers with integrated filters in a single workstep at Fakuma. For this, a tie-bar-less ENGEL e-victory combi machine will process three different raw materials. 10

11 Technical Moulding Sure handling of multi-component processes with liquid silicone: in the Technical Moulding section of its stand, ENGEL will demonstrate the production of sensor housings with integrated seals. ENGEL plus Thanks to its electric control valves, the new ENGEL e-flomo temperature-control water distribution system facilitates the fully automatic adjustment of flow rates, keeping temperatures constant throughout the production period even where water pressure varies. Pictures: ENGEL 11

12 ENGEL AUSTRIA GmbH ENGEL is one of the global leaders in the manufacture of plastics processing machines. Today, the ENGEL Group offers a full range of technology modules for plastics processing as a single source supplier: Injection moulding machines for thermoplastics and elastomers, and automation, with the assurance that individual components are also competitive and successful in world markets. With eight production plants in Europe, North America and Asia (China and Korea), and subsidiaries and representatives in more than 85 countries, ENGEL offers its customers the excellent global support they need to compete and succeed with new technologies and leading-edge production systems. Contact for journalists: Gerd Liebig, Group Marketing Director, ENGEL AUSTRIA GmbH, Ludwig-Engel-Strasse 1, A-4311 Schwertberg, Austria, Tel.: +43 (0)50/ , fax: -3009, gerd.liebig@engel.at Susanne Zinckgraf, Public Relations Manager, ENGEL AUSTRIA GmbH, Ludwig-Engel-Strasse 1, A-4311 Schwertberg, Austria PR Office: Theodor-Heuss-Strasse 85, D Neustadt, Germany, Tel.: +49 (0) , fax: -03, susanne.zinckgraf@engel.at Contact for readers: ENGEL AUSTRIA GmbH, Ludwig-Engel-Strasse 1, A-4311 Schwertberg, Austria, Tel.: +43 (0)50/620-0, fax: -3009, sales@engel.at 12