PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2011

BOTTLE MAKING 23 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 11/11 www.petpla.net clamping unit of the machine opens, there are ready containers in the blow moulds that are removed and there are also ready preforms, which are transferred from the injection cavi- ties to the right position in the blow cavities ready to be stretch-blown into containers in the next cycle. Then the clamping unit closes and while the next set of preforms is being injected, the preforms just placed in the blow cavities are being stretch-blown into containers The Cypet system can also be equipped with a (temperature) condi- tioning device between injection and stretch-blowing, with modes for round, oval and square containers. This fea- ture allows the temperature fine-tun- ing of the preforms, thus widening the processing window, especially with respect to preform design tolerances. Reasons for using an “injec- tion moulding machine” The use of a standard injection moulding machine provides techni- cal advantages such as a comfortable clamping area which allows the use of two or even three rows of cavities. The clamping force of the machines is high enough to allow a higher number of cavities to be employed, even for wide mouth jars. These characteris- tics and the fact that moulds are used which do not require any duplication of mould parts (only 1 set of neck rings needed), leads to lower machine and tooling costs with the use of many cavities for higher productivity. The hot runners apply the traditional and proven design of the 2-stage process preform moulds, with the same spare parts. A fast product changeover is another feature of the Cypet system. According to the company it takes only about 1 ½ hours for a complete configuration change. The Cypet machines are available in three models, K-16 (160t clamping force), K-28 (280t) and K-53 (530t), with up to 24 cavities. It is possible to produce a variety of different con- tainers on the same machine. For example, the smallest Cypet machine (model K-16) can produce 120mm neck jars in one cavity or 300ml bot- tles in twelve cavities. With the two bigger Cypet machines, bottles up to 30l and jars up to 145mm neck diam- eter can be produced. The Cypet process is protected by patents that have been granted in the USA, Canada, Europe, Russia, China, Mexico, Taiwan and Israel, and patents are pending in many other countries. Machines are currently in the final stages of beta testing opera- tion in the Middle East and Asia or under test production in Cyprus. As an example, 10l bottles produced on the K-28 model with two cavities are cycling at 29s. www.cypet.eu Cypet Technologies is a branch of M. Sideris & Son Ltd, established by Constanti- nos Sideris to develop and commercialize the Cypet process.