Machine makers show their might at Fakuma

Hehl says highest performance comes from the electric Alldrive and hybrid Hidrive machines. Nine horizontal and vertical machines run live at Fakuma, moulding multi-component, liquid silicon rubber (LSR), medical, hybrid component, automotive and packaging applications.

50 years of Billion multi-component moulding expertise is shown by 50-600 tonne electric drive Select machines. A Select H780-200T demonstrates a packaging application, and a Select H260/780-200T is doing two-component automotive moulding. A medical application runs on a Select H80-50T using a Sepro S5-25 linear robot.

Jörg Wittgrebe, managing director at the French company's Weilheim based German sales subsidiary, stresses the importance of multi-component rubber and LSR processes, especially for high temperatures, as well as in-mould-assembly (IMA).

There will be five machines on the Dr. Boy stand . Boy focuses on servo motor pump driven E series machines and the compact 0.8 m_ footprint 100-tonne XS. A 90E moulds safety glasses with high transparency PP lenses and frames and coloured PP as a two-component process. A 55E moulds plastic cups in 5s in a two-cavity mould with simultaneous metering, clamping unit opening and part ejection. A 35E VV vertical machine with a 6-axis robot shows overmoulding and tampo printing of ABS-clad metal bottle openers.

Engel (A5 5204) shows five production cells. Clearmelt polyurethane overmoulding is done on a Duo 2-platen Ecodrive machine equipped with Viper 20 and 40 liner robots. Insert moulding of glass fibre reinforced PA sensor housings runs with a Stäubli 6-axis articulated robot integrated into an Engel CC 200 control system. Another 6-axis robot is handling PP overmoulding of hollow disposable insulin pen needles, produced in a 3-cavity Zahoransky mould on an e-Motion.

A Victory Combi vertical tiebarless machine with a Viper 12 linear robot produces two-component polycarbonate/TPE hard/soft overmoulded bottle openers, combining in-mould labelling with insert moulding. IML is also represented by an e-Motion Combi moulding a thin-wall ice cream container lid in 5s with 450mm/s injection speed.

Fanuc Robomachine Europe demonstrates three Roboshot S-2000iB machines. A 30-tonne machine forms a micro-moulding production cell with a LR Mate 200ic robot and Cognex Insight image processing for 0.004g watch cogwheels.

Two-component poker chips are produced in an 8-cavity hot runner mould, using a Mold-Masters E-Multi injection unit for the second component. Artificial Intelligence  mould and ejector protection is shown with a LR Mate 200iC robot inserting a paper drinking cup into a closing mould to halt the moulding process.

The modular design multi-drive option F series machines launched by Ferromatik with a hybrid F160 at K2010 now includes F80 and F350 versions. There will eventually be 10 models with 50-600 tonne clamping forces, with a choice of 13 injection unit sizes.

Fitted with a general performance 50 injection unit running at 330mm/s and with a L/D 22 screw, an electric drive F160 produces thin-wall 0.5mm, 10.25g in-mould labelled transparent polystyrene containers.

Pure all-electric drive machinery is represented by the standard low- cost 50-350 tonne Elektron series, introduced in 2009 but only available in Europe since 2010, with eight clamping forces enabling 23 machine configurations. An Elektron 110 moulds 30% glass fibre reinforced PA electrical connector strips in a mould from electrical component producer Weidmüller in 10s.

Mono-sandwich moulding involves a 200-tonne K-TEC 200 MSW producing automotive parts with a Ferromatik FMR 8-5 High Speed liner robot, produced for FM by Swedish automation company Wemo.

Closure, medical and packaging are themes for Netstal (B3 3107). On the Netstal stand, an Elion 2800 with the hybrid drive from the Evos series, first introduced at K2010 on the 220 and 280 tonne Elions, produces PCO 1881 beverage closures with a 3.5s cycle time in a 72-cavity Z-Mold mould, with a new aXos control system and Intravis optical quality control.

Sumitomo Demag shows its all-electric IntElect , hybrid El-Exis SP and hydraulic Systec machines, alongside the new more comfortable and functional NC5 Plus control system.

A 160 tonne Systec Multi moulds two-component 4.1g clear and coloured transparent PMMA light guides in a HBW-Gubesch Kunststoff-Engineering rotating table mould.

A 3.5g twin pole automotive connector housing in glass fibre reinforced PBT with large wall thickness differences is moulded on a 100-tonne IntElect 100-340 in a 4-cavity Fischer hot runner mould in 11s and removed with a SDR 22 linear robot.

A 200-tonne hybrid El-Exis SP produces 250g thin-wall dishes in 3s with "Full-Cover-Labelling" in a 2-cavity tool within a production cell developed with Marbach Moulds & Automation.

New at Fakuma 2011 from Wittmann-Battenfeld is a smaller 650 tonne hydraulic MacroPower and a larger 300 tonne all-electric EcoPower. The new EcoPower 300 fitted with a Wittmann W821 linear robot produces a 130g PP clamp fitting in a special XCS cooling system tool from IFW, Austria.