PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2018

TRADE SHOW PREVIEW PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 05/18 www.petpla.net 63 precision and energy efciency. The valve technology makes it possible to set the pilot and main blow pressures in increments of 0.1 bar. A customer- specic blow study determines the optimal material distribution in the blow mould during the proving pro- cess. Optionally, process monitoring can use pressure sensors to meas- ure the main blow pressure while it is applied. If the pressure drops unex- pectedly, the plastics processor imme- diately receives an alarm message. If a customer wishes, the Blowliner is available as a spray-blower without the stretching component. At the end of the blowing process, the vacuum gripper of the integrated linear unloading system removes the nished products from the tool and places them precisely on a conveyor belt or directly in boxes. Tool technology Many considerations owed into the tool technol- ogy during the conception of the Blowliner. Hornhuber recalls: “Our goal was to increase the number of cavities and thus productiv- ity with additional optimised cycle time for existing plants. At the same time, we wanted to enable our customers to make optimum use of the machine. It should be possible to use the hot side of the tool to manufacture very different products in terms of size and thus number of cavities. This gives the user a very high level of exibility in their production.” The solution lies sary. The tool changes are easy. The operator uses the equipping carriage to move the tool to the machine and quickly and ergonomically changes the injection mould by means of a cable pull and roller conveyors. Satis- ed Hornhuber reports: “A complete tool change from good part to good part takes only ve to six hours for a trained technician. If only the blow- form is being changed, this can be handled within 30 minutes.” Vertical integration One Mould & Matic customer pro- duced four different items on his Blow- liner M for the rst two years. Fast tool changes and high exibility regarding size and design of the preforming and blowing tools were essential. Then one of the articles was discontin- ued. He had to change from a 30ml vial to a 5l container. “No problem!” says Hornhuber. “This variety can be realised effortlessly with our tooling technology.” Except for the injection moulding machine and the hot channel system, all components of the Blowliners are from Mould & Matic. The entire machine control and software comes from Austrian Micheldorf and is pro- grammed at Beckhoff. To optimise process reliability, camera inspection of the containers and a leak test are optionally available. The company advises on the choice of materials and the design of preforms and bottles. The preforms determine the cycle times of the stretch- blow process, therefore the material distribution in the nal product and thus wall thicknesses. Hornhuber afrms: “Intelligent pre- form design saves money because we can realise material savings and higher cycle times.” The Blowliner M permits cycle times of 10s, the little brother Blow- liner S can even manage less than 8s. The Blowliner M (double-row tool with twelve cavities) will be shown at the NPE, producing PET pill-packers. The containers have a volume of 250ml and weigh 30g. www.kiefel.com Three-row linear robot with a gripping mandrel in a balanced hot channel tool with a needle lock system. One question is primary to each new order: what products does the customer want to manufacture on the machine today and what does the future hold? Even if a two-rows 12-cavity tool is ini- tially used for products with an article weight of 15g, the same hot side can later be used for products made of PET, PP or HDPE with, for example, 35g article weight. “The customer is prepared for future developments and can react quickly to new challenges”, claries Hornhuber. Before Mould & Matic manufactures the series tools, the company rst builds test tools and optimises the end product for them. The capacity for different prod- uct sizes and tool congurations, however, was by no means every- thing. Quick tool changes should be included, which can even be handled by a single operator if necessary. An air cushion tool carrier for the injec- tion mould and one on rollers for the blow mould make the quick change possible. A hall crane is unneces- Blowliner Medium with a material throughput of up to 130kg PET per hour