PETpla.net Insider 01+02 / 2015

PREFORM PRODUCTION 21 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 01+02/15 www.petpla.net PREFORM PRODUCTION 21 whereas the energy costs are reduced by 9.4%. Assuming that the price of electricity is 0.12 euros per kilowatt hour, the annual saving amounts to a figure of 120,000 euros. When it comes to the economic success of a company, the operating costs for the machinery are therefore considerably more important than their purchase price. Comfort and convenience in oper- ation have been considered by the developers either. They have come up with something new and fitted the PET-Line 5000 with the DSP6, a further development of the tried-and- tested DSP control (Digital Signal Processing). This offers even more possibilities for remote maintenance and diagnosis and fits in particularly well with the new digital control tech- nology. In the interests of optimum pre- form quality and maximum flexibility, the PET-Line 5000 is presented in the form of a modular structure: the injec- tion moulding and clamping units are accommodated on a dual section bed which makes optimum layout pos- sible to suit the requirements of the individual project. The plasticising and clamping units are each available in three different sizes – thus making it possible to ”mix and match“. For exam- ple, if you wish to produce extremely lightweight preforms in a 144-cavity mould, it may be sensible, in the inter- ests of working in a way that ensures greater savings in relation to materials, to combine enhanced clamping force with a smaller injection moulding unit. The minimum throughput will then be less, the time the PET melt spends in the machine will be shorter and the resulting Acetaldehyde (AA) level will be lower. With its speed and high output quantity, the PET-Line 5000 has established itself in the top segment of the market. Reto Bamert, sales man- ager BU PET, sees the target mar- kets as tending to lie outside Europe. “We think primarily of the USA and China, because it is here that they demand very big output figures. Our customers there are, as a rule, large bottling plants that need a manage- able number of varieties of bottles but in such large quantities as to make investment in a 144-cavity preform mould worthwhile. Here our equip- ment is horizontally integrated into the production process; so our product stands right next to a blow moulding machine”. www.netstal.com