Full-automatic Screw-servo press
The positive applications of servo presses are described in this other article. Now I wish to be more detailed about typical situations of the daily production that gets all the benefits of the Anistek complete line design.
TOOL CHANGE
All the models fabricated from Anistek Mechatronic can be equipped with a quick-tool change system. This option allows to easily eject the mold from the inside of the press in a safe and comfort way. The benefit are translated into reduced footprint necessary to operate near the machine and no more requirement to move out the stacking unit from its natural working position.
Thanks to the complete leverage-free design of the mechanics is not anymore required to operate a stoke change setup of the press. No more complex and delicate setups of crankshaft and fine adjust of the closing point of the RAM. All is in the past. The servopress simply need to set on the touch panel a closing position and an opening position. That’s it!
Once tool is connected to the RAM (easily movable with lift-up spherical elements) and the necessary air plugs also fitted, will be possible to electrically adjust the feeding level of the foil. Few seconds only.
Set-up of air pression is also really fast and repetitive; the automatic servo regulators cha adjust pression into the mold with high precision and the system will keep in memory all the finest-tuning of the process.
The advantage of the system is that the tool change time is reduced and the settings will be 100% repetitive (no more operator dependant). Once done for a mold, the parameter is stored into the recipe archive, ready to be loaded next time the mold will be placed into the press.
The latest generation of stacking unit (STK-C-AUTO) follow the same approach. The number settings are reduced about 80% against standard model and are also automated. Simply press few buttons to adjust the size of the tray into the stacking line, time to setup is 2-3 minutes.
The final consideration is that tool change time is in a range of 15-25 minutes, against 4-5 hours, that represent quite significative gain into production available time on the machine, especially if considered the actual trend of the market where always smaller batch of production and less investments into stock are requested.
SAVE RAW MATERIAL
This is another really important argument. The cost of the final product is strongly affected by the raw material, this mean that savings on raw material is in top of the list of the tasks over the conversion process.
In an ideal world you ‘ll get a constant quality aluminium foil, that will make the life easy, because the system will react in the same way. But the real world is different, as everybody know all the coils you get are slightly different one from the other (differences include tolerances on grade of temper, thickness, lubrication, coating, kind of composition, etc..), this create evident problem into setup of machine and in many cases it’s the reason of cracks (splits) of material and waste of high quantity of aluminium foil. In extreme situation, on complex mold like smooth wall, is near to impossible to get correctly formed trays.
Some solution has been introduced on the market adding visual inspection of each tray produced, but in front at the good quality control is remaining the waste of material and the difficult to obtain decent production in some circumstances.
The servopress is coming into this task with the possibility to fine-tune the forming cycle. In other words, is possible to adjust the constant speed of forming without all the limitation that a conventional crankshaft press has in. The speed and other important parameters can be easily variated to obtain a proper forming without any split. We made possible to run a triple cavity mold at ambient temperature of ZERO °C at 55 strokes per minute with less than 1% scrap; same tool into a crankshaft 130T press can’t run without additional and heated lubrication at 15-20°C ambient temperature and performing 20% of scrap (crashed corners).
This experience and extremely high control of the forming made possible to explore new possibility into the production. One of this is the reduction of the thickness, without the risk to crack the aluminium foil. Another possibility is to completely redefine the deep-draw process with more efficiency and new mold design.
Economic advantages directly connected to the raw material saving are extremely evident. In most of the company saving of 3% are extremely significant: a proper application of the servopress can reach and pass that trigger.
FLEXIBILITY
When is necessary to choose a new production, equipment is important to have a look at the future. In fact, the investment, should be focused in what the future trends of the market will go. The Anistek servo presses actually offer the highest flexibility on the market because can be used to manufacture different range of products that include conversion of aluminium foil and paper.
Well considered the progressive extension of plastic ban (also into food packaging) we have to aspect an increase of the demand of alternative packaging.
The servo presses have the highest flexibility to run all the known kind of molds technology:
- Traditional wrinkle wall, typical application in take away market
- Multi compartment trays, used into ready meal industry (smooth wall technology) and restoration (army, self-service, take away, etc…) with wrinkle wall (G and L rims) finishing.
- Top automatic sealable smooth wall, always more used into ready-meal industry
- Deep draw, a specific technology to reach high ratio between Base dimension and total height of the tray
- Pharmaceutical capsule application
- Tea candle, worldwide popular as little candles with multiple application
- New technology of semi-smooth wall that combine the low cost of wrinkle wall to the sealable feature of the smooth wall
- Pet food packaging, a specific kind of size made with smooth wall technology
- Airline packaging, a specific size made with smooth wall technology
- Coffee cups, the famous packaging introduced from Nespresso worldwide, to enhance the shelf life of product and offer a superior taste experience to consumer.
- Folded high depth trays, commonly used in bakery
- Paper plates, like used in party and generally single-use eco-friendly disposable
- Paper bakery trays, similar to wrinkle-wall has same application and can replace them as basic packaging
- Muffins cups in traditional round and also fast-opening wrap design
- Paper mini cups, as used in fast-food to collect small portion of ketchup and mayonnaise or any other kind of top-up from self-dispenser machines
- Anything new that your fantasy and your market is going to demand! The possibility to add more steps into the forming to obtain new shapes and features of design that was completely impossible to imagine before.
All the above has in common the production line, the Anistek servopress, and all have different tool technology, it’s evident how many different possibility and new market opening doors are possible with the easy possibility to quickly offer really different products. Is really important to keep in mind this aspect when choosing a production equipment, because the multiple application can save huge investments into many different equipment during years of use.
Anistek mechatronic is really sensitive on this aspect because the aspect “technology life” of our machinery is in the range of 10-15 years. Invest today, ready for Tomorrow market!
Authored by:
Marco Capra
CEO and founder of Anistek Mechatronic GmbH
11/05/2018
