Fastest neck change
FlexBlow, South Hall 10169, n the highly saturated market of PET SBM machines one need to possess a competitive advantage against other manufacturers to gain customers’ attention and trust. FlexBlow claims that the latest 2018 two cavity FlexBlow2 model is the most universal 2-stage PET SBM machine on the market. It enables the production of wide range of PET containers possible on one piece of equipment with necks ranging from 18mm up to 110mm and bottle volumes from 50ml up to 6,000ml.
Changing the bottle format including moulds, neck and gripper parts, and fine-tune the machine afterwards takes no longer than 30m, according to FlexBlow Marketing Manager Gytis Sirvinskas. There is a number of developments that FlexBlow has added to their new machine in 2018 to stretch the ease of use and flexibility even further. To begin with, their dedicated Siemens control panel now has several new functions to make the experience of operating the machine intuitive. There is an integrated operator’s manual that guides the user along every step of operation to make it repeatable and minimise the impact of human factor. There is also an integrated catalogue to achieving top PET bottle quality with pictured troubleshooting guide, not to mention the machine production and efficiency statistics for performance tracking.
The challenge of automatically loading a range preforms with significant differences in neck diameter from narrow neck to wide mouth has been tackled by the use of dual preform loading system. When it comes to minimising the support ring, FlexBlow uses the precision adjustable feeding slides that allow loading preforms with support ring starting from 0.8mm. Inversed preforms with body wider than support ring is also compatible with FlexBlow universal feeding system due to innovative gate-like structure that opens slightly at the end of preform slide to allow the thicker preform body to come out.
The company plans to bring equipment for wide-mouth jar production, SBM machine for cosmetic bottles and a PET blower for large size bottles – all in one machine. Live changeover shows will take place daily to demonstrate the process of switching between wide mouth jar and cosmetic bottle production.
