British Plastics & Rubber articles from November 2008

British Plastics & Rubber archives from November 2008

Wanted: silver lining.
November 1, 2008... In a situation such as this country, and much of the rest of the world, has found itself there are certain inevitabilities. One is the sudden escalation of 20:20 hindsight; another is the emergence of the pundit class who know exactly how to...

Control motor speed and you control power consumption.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Variable speed drives are widely used to reduce power consumption on fans and compressor motors, but according to Rob Parkes of CCS Technology in Coventry, their potential to reduce running costs of injection moulding machines is largely...

Energy analysis reduced the need for expansion.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Husky Injection Molding Systems has put together a manufacturing optimisation team which advises its customers on how to improve OEE--overall equipment effectiveness. Energy saving is a key consideration, but as one US moulder found, the...

Servo-driven pump cuts Boy's energy bill.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... An energy saving drive has been introduced by Boy on its 55 and 90 tonne machines. The new 55E and 90E models are fitted with a servo-electric motor driving the pump which Boy says halves energy costs, and also cuts noise by 20 per cent and...

Ferromatik draws the GreenLine at energy saving.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... A GreenLine package of energy-saving measures has been put together by Ferromatik Milacron on its Cap-TEC closure moulding machine. This has three components: energy-efficient drive technology, intelligent accumulator management, and energy...

Arburg awards customers ...(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... The importance of saving energy led Arburg to set itself goals earlier this year to build its machines in the most energy efficient way, and it has added to that by starting an award competition to encourage its customers to be energy...

... While Engel surveys their needs.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... To find out what its customers expected in terms of energy saving from a machine supplier Engel surveyed around 100 companies working in various industries. The result indicated that while the moulding machine was seen as important when...

Magnetic clamping system monitors safety of the mould.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... A magnetic mould clamping system with enhanced performance and safety monitoring has been introduced by Staubli. The salient bit of the QMC 122 IMAG system is the "IMAG" which is the information monitoring software that runs in the magnet...

Needle valve permits scale-up from prototype to multi-cavity.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Use of the new Hasco Z10710 universal needle valve is said to enable findings obtained with prototype moulds having a specific type of nozzle to be transferred without risk to multi-cavity production moulds. Problems commonly found in the...

Arburg adds tech centre in Spain.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Arburg has opened another technical centre in its worldwide network. It has expanded its subsidiary in Madrid, Spain by a quarter to around 400 [m.sup.2]. Arburg has subsidiaries in 23 countries at 31 locations, and agency representation in...

Hot runner controller costs cut.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... The prices of Gammaflux Europe's hot runner temperature controllers have been reduced. The TTC series, the largest and most powerful, has come down in price by a "lower two-digit percentage" and on the LEC controllers for smaller systems, "the...

Ex-Mason Pinder man goes solo on tooling consultancy.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... A new mould tool engineering consultancy has been established by Ken Barrass, who led tool making and design at Mason Pinder for more than 20 years. BK Moulds & Solutions offers a global tool engineering consultancy service covering tool...

Induction heating puts the gloss on structural foam.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Foamed parts can be moulded with a high gloss surface finish using a package from Wittmann Battenfeld. The company has allied with Kunststoffinstitut Ludenscheid to apply inductive mould heating which is completed...

Engel sells its 70,000th moulding machine--to a British company.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... The 70,000th injection moulding machine built by Engel of Austria has been sold to a British company. Rosti Technical Plastics UK has taken delivery of the Victory 4550/600 tech machine to mould automotive parts. Rosti has been using...

Powdered ceramic moulding combined with metal film insert.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Injection moulding of ceramic powder has taken a new step at Arburg with a process which combines it with a metal film. The technique was demonstrated at the Euro PM2008 exhibition in Mannheim, Germany, for the production of a textile industry...

Insert moulding with a bottle opens up new packaging concepts.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... An overmoulding process for high end thick wall packaging has been patented by DuPont. It involves moulding over a hollow blow-moulded insert, and DuPont says this is new--overmoulding glass and solid plastics inserts is well established, but...

Flexibility to mould flexible seals.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Billion has extended its multi-material moulding abilities to mould any elastomer on to a thermoplastic or BMC thermoset. It is now offering injection units for LSR, TPE and thermoset rubber which are readily interchangeable as the second...

Tooling/moulding system devised for very small peek parts.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A metering block for use with high melt temperature materials in very small shot sizes has been developed by German tool maker Kobelin Formenbau. Kobelin specialises in clean room applications, in particular for...

New software models injection-compression vehicle glazing.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To meet what it sees as future growth in the use of polycarbonate for car glazing produced by two-component injection-compression moulding SABIC Innovative Plastics' Exatec business has developed a CAE method to...

More space to make more machines.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Chinese injection machine giant Haitian International has opened a new production hall which it says is one of the largest in the world. The 34 million [euro] building has added 125,000 [m.sup.2] of floor space as part of a 50 m [euro]...

Tap in the mould turns off flow to a cavity.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... AT-shaped flow channel which can be rotated to isolate flow to a cavity has been designed by i-mold of Germany and is being made by Cumsa of Spain. The setting of the sprue adjuster is done manually from the mould parting surface when the mould...

KEBA builds in Priamus sensing.(injection moulding)
November 1, 2008... Control specialists Priamus of Switzerland and KEBA of Austria have joined forces. Priamus cavity sensors can now be integrated in KEBA's KePlast injection moulding machine controller for OEMs as the PriaSmart option package. This enables, for...

Feedback sensors make robots touchy feely.(automation & robotics)
November 1, 2008... A means of giving robot manipulators a sense of A touch is now available through TIA Robotic Tooling Solutions. The company is selling the Net F/T Network Force/Torque Sensor System from ATI industrial Automation, which says it is the largest...

All-servo Basic robot from Wemo.(automation & robotics)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Swedish robot maker Wemo, whose equipment is sold in Britain by Ferromatik UK, has extended its range with a new Basic model--in name and in nature--and has added web-based support for individual robots. The new...

Big robot services a big machine at Rosti.(automation & robotics)
November 1, 2008... A heavy-duty Kuka robot has been installed at Rosti Technical Plastics for demoulding automotive rear console components. The KR150 L110 has been fitted to a 1,500 tonne Engel Duo injection moulding machine recently installed at Larkhall as a...

Tester tells you whether the servo valve's at fault.(process control)
November 1, 2008... New portable testers from BMC Controls can help to prevent functional servo valves being sent for repair unnecessarily. They allow manual control of most types of servo and proportional valves and so help decide whether the valve is the cause...

Recycling hits a motorway pile-up: the pressure is on to deal with mixed plastics household waste. As recent events have shown, plunging demand for recycled or recyclable material can cause a backlog virtually to the garden gate. And even when the recycling process runs smoothly, it is only dealing with a small part of the nation's unwanted plastics.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... The global financial crisis has pulled the rug out from under the after-market recycling business but there are signs of the situation easing. The price of Packaging Recovery Notes, the financial instruments of packaging waste which enable...

'WEEE isn't working'--but it works well enough for Indesit.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... The measures introduced nearly two years ago to control the recycling of electrical and electronic equipment are not working and have failed to deliver according to Keith Freegard, sales director of Axion Recycling. Speaking at a conference in...

Steady growth in Pan-European plastics recovery: but marked differences in national strategies.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... Each year the associations representing the interests of European plastics producers and processors--PlasticsEurope, EuPC, EuPR and EPRO--produce a report on trends in production, demand and recovery of plastics called The Compelling Focts...

Recycled materials used for what they do: not what they cost.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... The use of recycled, content compounds, especially engineering plastics, is now firmly established as a key design criterion to meet demands for eco friendliness and sustainability. Central to the development of successful recycled engineering...

Mixed plastics recycler gears up for a higher profile.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... Mixed plastics recycler Express Recycling and Plastics is planning to start up a trading operation as an extension to its investment in additional recycling facilities at its 2 acre site at Rainham in Essex. The company acknowledges a certain...

Nampak doubles contracted volume of rHDPE supply.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... Bottle recycler AWS Eco Plastics is to supply an annual 12,000 tonnes of food grade reclaimed HDPE to Nampak for use in milk bottles. Nampak already has contracts with Closed Loop London and Greenstar (WES), each for 6,000 tonnes. The agreement...

Rubber recycling research runs at Rapra.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... Two research projects at Smithers Rapra are concerned with the re use of waste tyre rubber. Following the EU ban on used tyre rubber from being placed into landfill sites from July 2006 a large amount of waste rubber has become available for...

Shredder overcomes film and filament problems.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... A rotor intended to prevent problems when shredding waste film, textile filaments and tape has been designed by Weima of Germany for use in its WLK single shaft shredder. Weima says that these materials can be difficult to handle because they...

Approvals for bottle-to-bottle recycling of PET with MXD-6 barrier.(reclamation & recycling)
November 1, 2008... The European Plastics Recyclers association EuPR has adopted the rules published in October by Petcore (PET Containers Recycling Europe) for the use of Mitsubishi Gas Chemical's nylon MXD-6 (polyarylamide) as a barrier layer in PET bottles....

PS bottles go into production for dairy products.(blow moulding)
November 1, 2008... The high impact blow moulding-optimised polystyrene BX 3580 from BASF, which has been promoted as a cost-cutting alternative to PET, has gone into production at German dairy company Schwalbachen. BASF says that the lower density of the...

Stretch blow machine builder adds filling/capping arm.(blow moulding)
November 1, 2008... Italian stretch blow machine manufacturer SIPA has bought the Berchi Group, which makes bottling and packaging lines.The two companies had been integrating their technologies for the past year, and have produced the Sincro Bloc Nexus integrated...

Faster head changes promised by Kautex.(blow moulding)
November 1, 2008... To cut wasted time in job changing Kautex has devised a quick head change system for its extrusion blow moulding machines, especially suitable for larger dies of 150 to 450 millimeters. It is no longer necessary to centre the die and then...

Enhanced cooling and energy feedback increase pipe output.(pipe & profile)
November 1, 2008... By improving the cooling process and re using the heat extracted to pre-heat the material Cincinnati Extrusion has increased the throughput that can be expected from a pipe extrusion line. It says its new KryoSys system makes it possible to...

Suppliers form a consortium to package PE-X pipe systems.(pipe & profile)
November 1, 2008... A consortium of European machinery and materials suppliers has been set up to develop a single-stage production process for peroxide-cross-linked polyethylene (PE-Xa) pipes. The aim is to provide a single package of all components: until now,...

Alphacan to sell off PE-X pipes division.(pipe & profile)
November 1, 2008... Arkema Group company Alphacan is to sell its cross linked polyethylene pipes business to French company COMAP, a subsidiary of the Dutch group Aalberts Industries. PE-X pipe is produced for sanitary and heating applications at the Nevers...

Surface defect inspection 'finds a needle in a haystack'.(film & sheet production)
November 1, 2008... The new WebControl-Tex system from Pixargus detects surface defects on opaque or translucent materials with or without textured surfaces, although it was developed specifically for challenging surfaces of opaque or translucent materials. When...

Two-in-one blown film and sheet line for development work.(film & sheet production)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] An extrusion line which converts between blown film and barrier sheet production has been built by Rajoo Engineers in India for the Reliance Industries Product Application Center in Chembur. This development line...

Technology rolled out for roll on photovoltaics.(film & sheet production)
November 1, 2008... American die manufacturer Extrusion Dies Industries is promoting its technology for the manufacture of flexible photovoltaic systems as continuous webs in reel to-reel processes, capable of being shipped on reels for installation on rooftops....

Plexiglas boost in Russia.(film & sheet production)
November 1, 2008... Production of Plexiglas extruded acrylic sheet is to be nearly tripled in Russia when the Evonik Industries joint venture Destek adds a second extrusion line at its Podolsk plant. The company is also to increase the availability of cast sheet...

Bio-sourced TPUs from PolyOne use Merquinsa technology.(biopolymers)
November 1, 2008... Two series of thermoplastic polyurethanes based on Merquinsa's Pearlthane ECO technology have been introduced by PolyOne through its GLS TPE-compounding subsidiary. The OnFlex Bio materials are made using renewable non food natural sources...

Bamboo reinforcement is virtually carbon neutral.(biopolymers)
November 1, 2008... Bamboo fibres are being used as plastics reinforcements by Dutch compounder Transmare Compounding. While bamboo cane is an age old construction material, Transmare says extracting, preparing and using the hard technical fibres at its core is a...

Toyota sets target for bioplastics in its vehicles.(biopolymers)
November 1, 2008... Japanese vehicle manufacturer Toyota is planning to switch 20 per cent of the plastics used in its vehicles to bio-sourced plastics by 2015, according to a report on a Japanese technology web site. Reporting a lecture at the recent BioJapan...

PLA lubricant evens out processing variations.(biopolymers)
November 1, 2008... A process aid for extruding, moulding and calendering PLA has been introduced by Arkema. Arkema says Biostrength 900 metal release lubricant widens the processing window, minimising variations in processing temperature and shear and leading to...

Portable colour measurement.(colour management)
November 1, 2008... A new portable colour measurement instrument from HunterLab can be used on the plant floor, the production line, or outdoors to measure the reflected colour of a product. The MiniScan EZ stores measurements in memory for later print out or down...

PMB starts on the expansion trail.(colour management)
November 1, 2008... The first step in an expansion of its capacity for masterbatch has been taken by Performance Masterbatcfies with the start-up of a small-capacity Coperion Keya twin screw compounder at its plant in Brynmawr, Gwent. The new line replaces one of...

Performance raised for UV absorbers.(additives)
November 1, 2008... A new type of inorganic UV absorber developed by Croda Polymer Additives is said to improve on traditional nano-powders with better UV Protection and improved transparency, Solasorb is intended for use primarily in clear film and bottles and is...

Polyolefin copolymers compete with high transparency materials.(packaging materials)
November 1, 2008... A new family of polyolefin copolymers is being developed by LyondellBasell with marked improvements in transparency. Two grades have so far been added to the Pristene family, for injection moulding and blow moulding with the potential to...

Acrylic makes cosmetic packaging faster.(packaging materials)
November 1, 2008... Faster moulding cycles are claimed for a new glass clear acrylic from Lucite. Diakon Rapide cools and solidifies more quickly than ordinary acrylic when injection moulded and the company says that trials with a customer in France showed that on...

Peek film now has the looks as well as performance for speaker diaphragms.(design)
November 1, 2008... A PEEK film coloured black for cosmetic reasons has been introduced by Victrex. The properties of Aptiv film include high temperature performance; chemical, wear and hydrolysis resistance; good mechanical, barrier (permeation) and electrical...

TPV belt takes the discomfort out of the stacking chair.(design)
November 1, 2008... The stacking chair with its moulded rigid shell is standard issue in countless institutional and business function rooms, but the strength and rigidity needed for the chair to survive can be counter to the comfort needed for the user to survive...

GF nylon ousts cast metals.(design)
November 1, 2008... Glass filled nylon is being used in the USA to make an irrigation pipe cutter when all the competing products are made in cast metals. Being made of nylon it is lighter than the metal equivalents which is good for its use in the field, but a...

NPE design competition invites entries.(design)
November 1, 2008... You have until April I to enter the International Plastics Design Competition being organised by the Alliance of Plastics Processors as a feature of the NPE2009 exhibition in Chicago, USA in June. This will be the first competition organised by...

PP chair is a design classic.(design)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Design in plastics will be recognised from January when the ubiquitous palypropylene chair gets first class treatment on a new stamp from Royal Mail. The Robin Day design will be one of 10 British Design Classics to...

Research into improved conveyor belt designs.(design)
November 1, 2008... A programme to develop improved conveyor belt designs for materials handling has been started by the materials handling department of the Technical University of Chemnitz in Germany and DuPont Engineering Polymers. The objective of the...

Simplified moulded interconnect process does away with metal conductors.(design)
November 1, 2008... A method of making moulded interconnect devices--MIDs--without a metallisation step has been devised by a German, Peter Putsch, who has set up a research company operating in co-operation with laser research group Bayerisches Laserzentrum and...

Plastics innovations in automotive oil control.(design)
November 1, 2008... Innovations in oil contact automotive engine and powertrain applications are claimed by DuPont for a nylon oil pan, and a combined seal and baffle in a thermoplastic elastomer. The company says that the oil pan now used on the Mercedes Benz...

Polyester TPEs are FR without halogens.(engineering materials)
November 1, 2008... Two new grades of polyester elastomer from Ticona have been designed to achieve flame retardancy without the use of halogens. The Riteflex XFR materials are for use where regulations such as the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive and...

Nylon 46 is tailored for high brightness LEDS.(engineering materials)
November 1, 2008... A grade intended for use in high brightness LED lead chip carriers has been added to DSM's Stanyl nylon 46 series. Stanyl LED 1551 offers high initial brightness combined with retention of reflectivity under high heat and high humidity...

New Evonik grades beat the heat.(engineering materials)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] New high temperature materials from Evonik include a polymethyl methacrylimide and a polyphthalamide. Pleximid PMMI is noted for its optical properties making it suitable for automotive headlight optics. Evonik...

Faster filling and thinner walls with new PBT and POM.(engineering materials)
November 1, 2008... Two engineering plastics introduced by DuPont Engineering Polymers reduce moulding cycle time. The new Crastin SF (super fast) PBT reduces melt viscosity by nearly half compared with an equivalent standard grade, while the new Delrin 300CP...

Long glass pp concentrate focused on automotive components.(engineering materials)
November 1, 2008... A long glass fibre concentrate polypropylene introduced by RTP Company is designed for automotive applications such as front-end modules and door plates, and large profile extrusions. RTP 199 X 118012 is melt impregnated to 60 per cent by...

PVC is bactericidal.(engineering materials)
November 1, 2008... Antimicrobial PVC compounds new from Doeflex-Vitapol have potential in wall protection, cable management, stair nosing, flooring, furniture trimming and medical tubing among others. Doeflex-UltraFresh stems from collaboration with Thomson...

Insulation dictates the efficient use of electrical heaters.(temperature control)
November 1, 2008... There are many electric heater configurations available for use in plastics processing. But they can fall into three main groups when describing their method of electrical insulation: mica, ceramic knuckle, and mineral insulated. John Pape from...

Calibrator tests thermocouples, probes and switches.(temperature control)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A dry-block thermal calibrator for testing a variety of thermocouples, probes and switches between 25 degC above ambient and 700 degC has been introduced by Techne. The Tecal 700X incorporates an isothermal...

Visible light curing can beat bonding limitations of UV absorbing additives.(finishing)
November 1, 2008... Engineering plastics destined for outdoor use usually contain an ultra violet light absorbing agent to prevent deterioration. But when components are assembled with UV-curing adhesives, says adhesives manufacturer ThreeBond, the UV absorber can...

New factory increases plating-on plastics capacity.(finishing)
November 1, 2008... Production has started at Quality Plated Plastics' new factory alongside its old premises at Great Barr in Birmingham. The new plant increases the company's capacity both in volume and the size of moulding that can be plated. QPP offers a...

Car cabin squeak killer.(finishing)
November 1, 2008... Another coating to prevent friction-generated noise in car interiors has been introduced by Dow Corning. Molykote D-9610 Anti Friction Coating dries to a black finish, and complements the white and semi transparent finishes already available....

Robotic router saves floor space.(finishing)
November 1, 2008... The latest routing system from KMT Robotic Solutions for trimming thermoformed, blow-moulded, rotationally moulded and composite products is a compact machine intended to take up less space in the factory. Like the larger models in the...

Superglues not as simple as they sound.(finishing)
November 1, 2008... New cyanoacrylate adhesives from two suppliers, show that "superglue" is more than just a single material. Intertronics says cyanoacrylate adhesives, or "superglues", are widely used but often little understood and may be of extremely...

Digital flat bed printer added by KayeDee.(finishing)
November 1, 2008... A flat bed digital machine has been added to the range of printers from KayeDee. The Kimoto Free jet 320 uses a solvent based pre coating spray plus a mild solvent ink and this combination creates a scratch and abrasive resistant layer allowing...

Membrane dryer series is uprated with new model.(materials handling)
November 1, 2008... A new model has been added to the NovaDrier series of membrane dryers built by Novatec in the USA and sold in Europe by Maguire Europe. The NovaDrier uses the flow of compressed air through an absorption membrane to remove moisture, so needing...

Gravimetric feeder is quicker to clean and service.(materials handling)
November 1, 2008... The Maguire MGF Series gravimetric feeder has a new modular design which the company says increases production up-time while continuing to be more accurate and no more costly than conventional volumetric feeders-and 25-35 per cent cheaper than...

Drying network treats each consumer as an individual.(materials handling)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A central system which operates each component as if it were an individual drying station has been introduced by Moretto. The Flowmatik Multi system can have up to 32 hoppers with drying variations set by hopper...

Additions and updates to materials handling from Colortronic.(materials handling)
November 1, 2008... New bulk storage and dosing and feeding equipment has been added by Colortronic. The company has added octabin tilters, a vertical batch mixer and bulk material storage containers to its range. The octabin tilting units allow the containers to...

Ferlin changes agency.(materials handling)
November 1, 2008... Dutch dosing and blending systems manufacturer Ferlin has changed its British representation. It has moved from UPM Machinery Sales to UK Plastics Machinery. www.ukplasticsmachinery.co.uk

Cast PU makes 500 mouldings a year.(short run processing)
November 1, 2008... The MRIM process from Midas Pattern Company is being used by the Lucid Group to make the structural/cover components for a new face and body skin rejuvenation system. Annual volumes are expected to be around 500 systems a year, so the cost...

Direct digital manufacturing demand surprises Stratasys.(short run processing)
November 1, 2008... Demand for direct digital manufacturing surprised Stratasys when it developed its FDM 900mc machine. The company's fused deposition modelling machines had hitherto been intended and used specifically for rapid prototyping, but the FDM 900mc was...

Laser sintering for high temperature polymers.(short run processing)
November 1, 2008... A laser-sintering machine for high temperature polymers has been introduced by EOS. The P 800 is based on the company's EOSint P 730 but built to withstand the demands of high temperature processing The first material formulated to run on...