Our Speeches at Fakuma 2023 At the Fakuma 2023 we had the opportunity of holding two public speeches, in order to reach out to the market regarding the importance of correct material handling, thermal balance and mold ventilation in the injection molding industry. If you missed them at the trade show, here you can find a summary on what we presented! Sustainable molding: Saving energy at every single shot! The Japanese concept Choko-tei refers to micro-stops of 1-2 minutes that occur during production. Since they might lead to serious production stops, it´s necessary to look for the root causes before running the injection molding machine again. In our experience the tendency is usually to change the IMM parameters, but there are other important aspects which are often overlooked and need more consideration: Material condition Due to poor handling, material might remain stuck in the hoses, present dust or show layer separation even after mixing. Matsui stresses the importance of having solutions that can remove metal and dust particles (Magic Catch and ARV), or that ensure a uniform mixing (JCGB). Thermal balance Dirty water and the scale accumulation in the pipes has an impact on heat conductivity and causes longer cooling time. For this topic and more, we cooperate with our partner Contura GmbH, experts in assuring the right thermal balance through the conformal cooling technology for the mold. Mold ventilation Too much injection pressure during molding implies a high waste of energy and frequent cleaning, along with recurring damage to your products. Matsui presents the new Mold Breather, an ejector pin with tiny slits that can increase ventilation inside of the cavity and decrease clamping force, thus saving energy. Taking into account these three important factor brings many benefits: saving energy and material, reducing the cycle time, and reducing the clamping force, thus ensuring a longer mold lifetime. By this, it´s possible to maintain the IMM parameters stable and achieve a sustainable molding factory. Plastic recycling: The Japanese way to achieve "Zero Emission Molding Factory" When looking at the 3Rs of plastic recycling (reduce, reuse, recycle) the attention in Europe tends to focus on the recycling part, only after the waste is produced. The Japanese word Mottainai means “what a waste”, and is used when expressing regret for something that´s wasted without deriving its value. With this mentality, Japanese small and medium-size companies start the recycling line before having waste, since the primary focus is on how to reduce its production. An important element to achieve zero emissions is the in-house recycling within the company, without occurring to external sourcing. There are some traditional ways of setting up the in-line recycling system, but there are still many issues that remain unsolved and will cause later problems during production: Layer and dust problems The standard recycling set-up adopted in Europe involves the passage of the virgin material from the dryer to the injection molding machine. The granulator is also connected directly to the molding machine, but this causes the dust to reach the mold and the material to separate into different layers of virgin and regrind. For this reason, dedusting and mixing devices such as the APH, who performs both functions, play an essential role in the recycling process. An essential item for this approach to recycling is the new Pelletizer, an item developed by our solution partner MSK. It operates at a temperature 20% lower than molding temperature, so not to alter the materials´ mechanical properties, and cooling is performed through air. After this process, the regrind presents a uniform size that can ensure optimal molding with lower leves of waste. Deploying all of the points mentioned above, we managed to run a non-stop production of high gloss PC-ABS parts using 100% regrind material, during Fakuma 2023. A total of 2400 shots, using only an hourly output of 8kg/h of our repelletizer means that the material ran 15 closed cycles. After all those cycles, the parts still showed optimal optical quality and flexibility. Learn more about this by clicking on the booth concept button below. Chech out our event report for the Fakuma 2023! Check out our booth concept for the Fakuma 2023!
