At the Interplas in Birmingham from 26 to 28 September 2023, Arburg (Stand H4/Hall 4) will be exhibiting an efficient production cell that produces Luer connectors made of PP and TPE for the pharmaceutical industry. The centrepiece is a two-component Allrounder More 1600 injection moulding machine, handled by a Yaskawa six-axis robot. Closures are capped and threads unscrewed directly in the mould. The innovative high-end solution eliminates the need for a second mould and additional assembly line. This significantly reduces the manufacturing costs.
"We provide our plastics processing customers with efficient technologies to ensure their competitiveness. Especially during these more challenging economic times, not least due to increased energy costs, they can totally rely on us," says Colin Tirel, Managing Director of Arburg Ltd. "We are seeing a growing interest among our customers in process capability, energy efficiency and digitalisation. Interplas is an excellent platform for showcasing these key topics and our new technology developments."
Injection moulding with a delicate touch
The highlight at the trade fair stand is a two-component Allrounder More 1600 injection moulding machine with 1,600 kN clamping force and two 100 electric injection units. The exhibit produces four ready-to-use Luer connectors at a time within a cycle time of around ten seconds. Injection moulding requires a delicate touch and precision: the part weight of the PP component is 0.2 grams and the soft TPE component weighs as little as 0.05 grams. The 4+4-cavity mould features Braunform's RotaricE2 technology. Four servo-electric axes from Arburg's sister company AMKmotion control the internal mould sequences for core-back, lifting the lid, capping the closures and unscrewing the Luer threads. The compact design translates to a large number of cavities in a small space, with up to 64+64-cavity versions possible in series moulds.
Precision and a delicate touch are required when injection moulding the Luer connectors on an Allrounder More 1600: the shot weight of the soft TPE component is only 0.05 grams.
The "aXw Control CycleAssist" assistance function generates a graphic comparison of the current times and previously defined reference values for each cycle step. Unproductive time segments can be displayed with a click. This enables the user to reduce the cycle time and makes high productivity programmable in advance.
Integrated in Gestica: Yaskawa robot
The six-axis robot from Yaskawa is integrated into the Gestica control system. Similarly to the linear Multilift robotic system, it can be programmed quickly and easily directly via the machine controller. For the trade fair application, the six-axis robot removes the finished parts from the mould with a four-cavity gripper and feeds them individually to an inline camera inspection. It then deposits them separately by cavity.Allrounder More: More space, modularity and convenience
The modular and production-efficient Allrounders in the More series are specially designed for multi-component injection moulding and can be flexibly adapted to specific customer and market requirements. They offer more space for larger moulds and a usable ejector stroke, more modularity during assembly, and many optimised features for greater ease of use and simple maintenance. As standard, the machines feature a highly dynamic electric toggle-type clamping unit with energy-efficient liquid-cooled servo motors and two electric injection units. This allows all common two-component applications to be realised.
At Interplas 2023, an Allrounder More 1600 with a clamping force of 1,600 kN will be producing Luer connectors from PP and TPE. The multi-component machine can be flexibly automated with linear and multi-axis robots.
