BFmold used for gloss flush panels

The use of BFmold variotherm mould technology has enabled bathroom fittings company Sanit, based in Eisenberg, Germany, to produce high-gloss plastic toilet flush panels. The panels are marketed as a lower-cost alternative to panels made in glass and other materials.

Sanit's range of on-wall flush panels are sleek with flat buttons, indicating the trend for flush panels to become design items in bathrooms. Sanit looked to produce a high standard of surface quality and it is now using BFmold technology supplied by injection moulding machinery maker Wittmann Battenfeld to achieve high quality mouldings. The process is supported by a Wittmann Tempro plus C160 Vario temperature controller.

At the ISH trade fair in March, Sanit showed a gloss black flush panel, the first time the company has produced a black panel.

BFmold was developed by Kunststoff Institut Ldenscheid, Germany, and last year Wittmann Battenfeld acquired exclusive distribution rights to the technology. BFmold is suited to flat moulded parts in materials such as ABS and ABS/PC blends. The BFMold technology uses metal balls beneath the mould surface providing a high level of free space required to create efficient conformal temperature control channels.

At Fakuma last month, Wittmann Battenfeld showed the BFmold technology moulding a coffee machine panel on a HM 110/350 Servopower Insider machine, with robot take-out and optical inspection.