Engel at FIP

The second exhibit at the fair focuses on fully electrical drive technology. An ENGEL e-motion 440/100 T machine will be producing cough medicine beakers on a 16-cavity mould by Curtil, France. The machines in the ENGEL e-motion series combine maximum power and precision with minimal energy consumption on a tiny footprint.

All machine movements – from injection and plasticising, through to the mould and ejector movements – are executed by servoelectric drives. The result is optimum efficiency. During standstill times, cooling for example, the machine does not consume any power. Additionally, the energy that legacy systems lose on braking movements is recovered as electrical energy.

Thanks to the encapsulated toggle lever with recirculating oil lubrication system, friction in the toggle lever joints is extremely low; this means that the ENGEL e-motion requires comparatively little power for building up and reducing clamping force. This not only saves energy, but ensures particularly clean operation, thus making the machine an ideal candidate for clean room applications.

As a representative of the new linear robot generation by ENGEL, an ENGEL viper 6 will be making the journey to Lyon. The viper robots impress with excellent load bearing capacity, extremely accurate positioning and highly dynamic operation. This is mainly attributable to three of the new robot generation's features:
- vibration control reduces vibration for improved tracking and positioning accuracy, thus ensuring shorter cycle times,
- mass identification detects the weight in the gripper. If the weight exceeds a preset value, the robot slows down its movements, thus additionally extending its extremely long service life. If the weight is below the nominal value, the robot accelerates its movements, thus improving the productivity of the plant,
- efficiency control minimises robot wait times by allowing the robot to automatically adapt its sequences outside of the injection moulding machine to match the cycle time of the production plant. This function again ensures a long service life of the robot's mechanical systems and makes a major contribution towards energy efficiency.

Viper robots are not just deployed on ENGEL injection moulding machines, but also on third party machines. Five sizes with nominal load bearing capacities of between 6 and 60 kg are available.