In view of the continually increasing cost of raw materials, the thin-wall technique is becoming increasingly important for packaging manufacturers. At the Market Segment Meeting Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, together with Kebo AG from Neuhausen in Switzerland and Machines Pagès from Foncine Le Haut in France, demonstrated the advantages that the hybrid El-Exis SP fast-speed machines offer in this area.
With its patented drive technology the high-speed injection moulding machine, El-Exis SP, offers even faster injection rates and more rapid mould movements than the El-Exis-S, thus testing the limits in the production of packaging.
With a four-cavity mould from Kebo, an EL-Exis SP 200 produced 200 thin-walled cups at a rate of one cup in 1.8 seconds. A high-speed robot system from Machines Pagès ensured the swift removal and stacking of the injection moulded cups.
Kebo AG from Neuhausen in Switzerland makes high-performance injection moulds for applications in medicine, pharmaceuticals and laboratories, for caps and closures and for packaging and IML. The Swiss company specialises in moulds with multiple cavities.
Machines Pagès of Foncine Le Haut in France is a manufacturer of robot systems for injection moulding and thermoform technology. Its mass production focuses on packaging, medical applications, caps and closures and consumer goods. The French company is the world's largest supplier of IML automation systems.
That high performance is standard for the new El-Exis SP was demonstrated by Sumitomo (SHI) Demag with is production of 1.2-litre buckets - representing a typical mass-produced article in the packaging industry. Equipped with a two-cavity mould, the El-Exis SP 300 (3,000 kN) worked with a cycle time of around 5 s. The buckets, which had a safety latch and weighed 38 g, had a wall thickness of 0.65 mm with a flow path/wall thickness ratio of 280.
The two-cavity mould was constructed by the French mould manufacturer Collomb from Oyonnax. This well-established company, founded in 1970, produces precision moulds for industrial packaging and food packaging. Stack moulds with up to 16+16 cavities ensure a high standard of efficiency for production in the relevant applications.
The hybrid high-speed machines of the El-Exis SP series are ideal for the production of thin-walled packaging. Their high output and low energy consumption are simply ground-breaking. Due to the hybrid drive concept with energy recycling in parallel operation, the machine consumes up to 40 % less energy than comparable hydraulic fast-speed machines.
