German rubber and silicone moulding specialist, Klöckner Desma Elastomertechnik (Desma) hosted an open house event held 15-16 October in Tuttlingen with Desma’s Managing Director, Martin Schürmann, opening the event.
The event, carrying the theme, “Where Champions Meet”, was attended by visitors from 27 countries.
Some 330 visitors in the moulded rubber parts industry were able to benefit from lectures, workshops, and application technology presentations on the topics of automation, process reliability, new manufacturing processes.
Schürmann said that this year, the Fridingen-based firm received orders from 46 new customers from 14 countries. The company’s turnover at the current year will exceed EUR80 million; by 2017, the company forecasts a turnover of EUR100 million, and a world market share of 30%.
Schürmann also talked about the extensive investments in the manufacturing and production technology and the expansion of the factories: construction of new workplaces for 60 employees from the design, development, and customer service departments, the move to a new factory building in Wuxi/China scheduled for early 2015, and the doubling of the mould design capacity in the US. Likewise, the second issue of the Desma manual, “Basic of cold runner technique”, was also presented.
A factory tour also took place on the second day of the event. Running at full capacity, the plant was a showcase of an array of machines currently under construction with clamping forces ranging between 1 and 1,350 tonnes, and with shot volumes of 0.01 l up to the freely selectable multi-shot method.
Moreover, the S3 series has been fully implemented. In the vertical machines programme, it comprises seven types with clamping forces from 100 to 800 tonnes, and six machine types in the horizontal machines programme.
Other machines have been showcased, such as:
- The 100 tonne S3 horizontal machine, which boasts of ultra-small footprint, simple operation, and easy accessibility
- The new horizontal machine D 969.300 SEALMASTER (S3) with the new FIFO B Advanced injection unit at work. Via PlastControl, a residue-free compound change was completed within minutes. The new machine generation convinces with highly dynamic movements and ultra-low noise emission.
- EcoSilence temperature control units with highly efficient pump and energy-saving drive motor
- The Iso+ heating plates, which achieve a significantly improved temperature distribution and less heat loss
- EnergyControl, the energy management system for all machines with DRC 2020 HT visualisation, to render energy efficiency. This optional device measures the actual energy consumption and avoids peaks by intelligent sequencing of consumer activation. It furthermore indicates the actual energy consumption per cycle on the machine visualisation
- PressureSense system, which closes the cold runner nozzles depending on the inner mould pressure. This compensates for variation in batches and reproducibly controls the fill level of the cavities. Furthermore, the PressureSense module makes it possible to produce articles from one tool with differently-sized cavities.
- ZeroWasteITM pot, which makes injection of articles without sprue loss possible. Waste-free article production was presented in the form of a new 18-cavity injection mould
- VARIO cold runner, which features an adjustable nozzle position; this cold runner block system can easily be adapted to a wide range of different moulds
- Propter, the computer-based process optimisation system, can aid even the inexperienced users to fully optimise their processes to achieve a constantly high quality in the articles produced.
- FlowControl nozzle technology was integrated in the system to realise further potential savings by controlled energy input.The patented FlowControl cold runner is the only cold runner block system, which allows for flexible energy input at the nozzle tip. The flexible energy input is selected via the machine control system. This cold runner block system was presented together with an injection mould with integrated pressure sensors which provide for pressure-dependent injection deactivation, separately for each nozzle. Thus, volume fluctuations for example due to insert tolerances, batch variations etc. can be fully compensated. As a result, reject can be reduced considerably, a huge benefit in particular with the expensive inserts commonly found in the electrical industry.
- Scanning mould surfaces with Movis, which stands for MouldVisualisation – this means that the mould surface is scanned cyclically by means of a laser system to check for example that the article has been fully un-moulded after brushing. The system can also detect remaining burrs and sprues of a size of 0.5 mm and up. It can also be used to check the position of the inserts, or the complete fitting with inserts.
- QuickLock and mould pre-heating station that enables mould change within ten minutes. The QuickLocksystem is a hydro-mechanical quick-clamping device, which can be integrated as an option with the S3 machine generation. The actual clamping of the mould is done by disk spring packages. Only for releasing the tension, pressure is applied to the integrated hydraulic cylinders.
- Extended by a bi-directional functionality, the NoBus solution transmits up to tem machine status messages via WLAN to the workplace of production workers. Matching interface solutions eliminate the need for expensive production information systems.
