Plastics News Show Daily - April 5, 2012 - (Page 34)

34 PLASTICS NEWS, April 5, 2012 Milacron shows off its hybrid technology By Bill Bregar PLASTICS NEWS STAFF ORLANDO, FLA. — Milacron LLC (Booth 2803) is molding pipe fittings on the new a Maxima Servo, bringing hybrid technology to its two-platen injection molding machines. The 310-ton Maxima Servo offers similar energy efficiency, reliability and quality of an all-electric press, but at a lower price, Belgium’s PCV targets IML sector By Hamish Champ PRW Milacron officials said. The machine comes with a servo-electric motor instead of a standard induction motor or frequency drive to run the hydraulic system. It also offers the smaller footprint of a two-platen press. “As energy costs continue to rise, it becomes more critical to give our customers as many options as possible to help reduce their costs,” said Brian Bish, Milacron’s global hydraulic platform product manager. Milacron offers the Maxima Servo in clamping forces from 31044,000 tons. Milacron’s centrally located tonnage cylinder delivers the clamping force directly behind the mold, instead of on the corners, so the clamping force is delivered directly behind the mold. The company also is showing new sizes of several injection presses. The F-80, the latest in the F series of Ferromatik Milacron machines, has a clamping force of 90 tons. The F series is geared toward the packaging, consumer goods and medical technology. Milacron eventually will offer the F series in 10 clamping force sizes. Milacron also is molding square lids on a 550-ton Power- Pak press running a two-by-four stack mold from StackTeck. A new CBW telescoping side-entry robot snaps in to remove the lids, molded on a five-second cycle. “It’s one of the only all-electric injection molding machines that runs just as fast as a hybrid,” said Eric Thompson, electric platform product manager. The Maxima Servo and PowerPak running in Orlando are using the new Mosaic 2.0 controller, with enhanced mold protection and retrofit capability. Extrusion fans in Florida this week can check out an M-PAK single screw extruder making med- ical tubing, with Conair downstream equipment, tooling from B&H Tool, a Zumbach laser and ultrasonic gauging. Milacron also is showing the new TP75 parallel twin-screw extruder, which now gives the TP series five models with an output up to 3,000 pounds an hour. “Previously, smaller pipe and profile applications would have required a conical twin-screw maching,” said Mike Puhalla, general manager of global extrusion. “Now PVC to WPC (wood-plastic composites) and everything in between can be done on this smaller parallel twin screw.” ORLANDO, FLA. — Printing Co. Verstraete is a Belgium-based in-mold labeling company using NPE2012 to highlight its products in a market where it claims a 70 percent market share of the IML sector. The company has not taken a booth at the trade show, but PCV business manager Dieter Maes said attending NPE “confirms our market status” in IML, a position boosted by the seven companies exhibiting at the event that are running the company’s technology, including Arburg, Engel and Wittmann Battenfeld. “We produce 34 million IMLs a day, 7 billion a year, at our two Belgian facilities. A quarter of our labels are exported outside Europe, with 20 percent going to North and South America,” Maes said. PCV turnover is about 82 million euros ($109 million) a year. Adaptability is a key element of PCV’s IML system, said Maes, since retailers can change their requirement demands for tub and other container labeling at a moment’s notice. “Take ice cream flavors; they change all the time. You need to be able to respond quickly,” he added. Maes also has seen a shift in attitude toward the benefits of IML technology in packaging. “A growing number of brands are moving some of the money they’d previously earmarked for advertising over to packaging innovation, and we’re seeing budgets rising in the Americas,” he said. PCV also is looking to exploit its range of aesthetic options and the functionality of its IML systems. “Not only do we want to make the process as cost effective as possible, IML is also a sustainable process, which is important for retailers like Wal-Mart who score packaging according to its environmental friendliness. “Plus we want to broaden the horizon of what IML can do for things like paint and cosmetics containers and areas such as metal-to-plastic,” Maes said. PCV offers metallic IML in a range of colors, peelable IML, IML-T — an orange peel foil developed to work with thermoforming processing — and oxygen barrier labeling that can extend a product’s shelf life.  http://www.novatec.com/moisturemaster http://www.dryplastics.com

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Plastics News Show Daily - April 5, 2012

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