MOULD MAKING PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 12/21 www.petpla.net 20 PET preform moulds for side-entry systems Rotated by 90° PET preform moulds from Otto Hofstetter AG are now also available for side-entry systems. The family-owned Swiss company relies on its proprietary Cavity-Lock stack design, with its proven track record in the top-entry world, supplying all corresponding EOATs ranging from 2 to 192 cavities. Otto Hofstetter. For example, in Austria, a 48-cavity preform mould for 1.5litre bottles has been running without a rebuild for 22 years; in Indonesia, a 96-cavity mould for 0.6 litre bottles has been in continuous service since 2007. The hot runners are also marathon performers. In Belgium, one of Otto Hofstetter’s hot runners has been in daily use since 2014, clocking up almost 16 million cycles and counting. Side-entry moulds A few months ago, the management of Otto Hofstetter AG decided to construct side-entry moulds for PET preform systems with horizontal robot removal. This means that PET preform producers can now enjoy the durability and high availability of Swiss moulds for both side- and top-entry platforms. The move from the proven topentry to side-entry moulds basically just required a rotation of 90 degrees. For this purpose, some small technical adjustments had to be made in the design. The result is side-entry MOULD MAKING In 1977, Otto Hofstetter AG engineered and constructed the first injection mould for the production of PET preforms. The client was the Continental Can Company, which had the mandate to produce new drinks packaging for Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The order consisted of 12 injection moulds with 16 cavities, many of which were designed to produce preforms for 2-litre bottles. Since then, many leading PET producers in Asia, North and South America, Australia, Africa and Europe are customers of these Swiss-made tools, which are manufactured using high quality components assembled with great care by skilled toolmakers. In addition to this craftsmanship, achieving the performance levels of the moulds from Uznach requires even more expertise. For example, refinements like OH Xtreme coating, which enabled a 72-cavity mould to complete more than 15 million cycles before its first maintenance. Or OH Xtra surface treatment, which reduces conventional average roughness (RA) from 0.2 to 0.3 microns to 0.05 to 0.1 microns. Otto Hofstetter is proud of the reliability of their cavity-lock mould design which the company claims has a longer service life than conventional feed-in designs, often needing revisions after 10 million cycles. According to the latest data from producers, this target is often exceeded, says 96-cavity side-entry mould 144-cavity side-entry mould
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