Productivity focus at thermoforming event

In a presentation titled “Getting thermoforming out of the black box”, Horst Dänzer - a former managing partner and CEO of thermoforming company Erwin Schmidt ES Plastik - described the new Toolvision system he has developed to address the lack of recordable data in the thermoforming industry.

Dänzer described this lack of data recording as “the great disadvantage of thermoforming compared to injection moulding”.

The Toolvision system aims to remedy this using dedicated sensors applied to new or existing tooling to measure, monitor and display forming air pressure, vacuum, plug assist position, tool strain and temperatures, as well as infrared measurement of sheet temperature and thickness.

According to Dänzer, users of Toolvision can increase production efficiency, cut scrap rates by 50%, and protect machines and tools by monitoring set threshold levels.

Meanwhile, Reiner Albrecht, sales director at Illig Maschinenbau, provided delegates with an update on its thermoforming in-mould labelling (IML) system, which was developed with the Austrian thermoforming company Volpini De Maestri and was shown originally at the K’2007 fair.

The IML system has been operating in mass production for two years with Volpini De Maestri, producing a 1.0mm thick by 95mm diameter 200g PP yogurt cup with offset printed IML labels.

The cup is thermoformed in a two-row 12-cavity tool at 20 cycles/min, giving an output of 14,400 cups/hour. Albrecht said that a heat-activated adhesive is no longer needed on the label, as the IML foil is hot enough to adhere to the PP cup body.

Volpini is the only company worldwide to use the Illig IML system, which Albrecht attributes to the difficulty in substituting the injection moulded IML cups that have been in the market for as long as 20 years.

“We have to convince ex-thermoformers doing injection moulding to go back to thermoforming again”, he said.

IML thermoforming is making international headway, however. In June, Klaus Wanner, sales and marketing director at automation specialist Hekuma and the provider of automation for Illig’s IML system, said it will be supplying a T-IML in-mould thermoforming line based on a machine from TSL Thermoforming Systems to the US company Tech II.

Tech II will be the first company in North America to adopt IML thermoforming. TSL Thermoforming Systems will show the T-IML system at the K 2010 fair later this year.

In a separate presentation, Solera sales and marketing director Daniele Versolato described the development of thermoformed panelling for the PastItaly brand “pasta espresso al dente” vending machine. Launched by food machinery producer Meccanica H7 at the end of April, this machine serves freshly prepared pasta dishes within four minutes and is capable of delivering up to 300 portions of 100g without replenishing.

Versalato said the eight thermoformed ABS plastic panels used for the metal-framed vending machine’s housing are made using three different thermoforming processes – high pressure forming, traditional vacuum forming and twin-sheet forming.

Design work started on 19 November 2009 and the first prototypes, made in aluminium or polyurethane moulds, were ready on 12 February 2010.

Vacuum forming is used for the front panel and two lower floor panels, which are glued together and filled with foam, due to the need to incorporate some parts within the panel structures. Foam and metal-frame cored twin-sheet is used for the side panels to provide enhanced structural strength. High pressure forming is used for the top panels to achieve the aesthetic appearance needed on the curved edges and the tight radii of defined fixing points.

Meccanica H7 is targeting sales of 800 machines in the first year alone, to a worldwide market. It claims a payback period of months if serving 60 portions a day or more.

The Solera Thermoform Group comprises Solera Materie Plastiche in Florence and Thermoform in Padua. It has a total of 30 thermoforming machines and processes around 4,500 tonnes of plastics a year. The group is capable of producing twin-sheet thermoformed parts at up to 3m by 2.5m and traditional vacuum formed parts up to 4m by 1.5m.

A key element of the SPE European Thermoforming Conference is the awards, which recognise innovative items produced using the technology, and the exhibition area.

Swedish thermoformer AB Formplast won an award for a soft-coated pressure-formed ABS spotlight lamp housing. The design overcomes the difficulty in the thermoforming process of getting sufficient material through a small tool opening, achieved through the use of two movable parts in the tool.

The company also entered a Volvo truck rear wall box, which is produced using a plug assist pressure forming process in ABS to obtain a deep draw with good material distribution.

Jacob Kunststofftechnik also entered deep-draw application in the form of its Easylift “Baby Wanne” CRS baby car restraint system. The deep-draw PP “tub” for the seat shell is produced in a dual tool. The company said its has now finally achieved European EN standard approval, enabling the Easylift CRS to enter the market, initially in Scandinavia, this year.

Cartolux-Thiers of France was awarded for its G-PET universal blister pack. This features a screw thread and is designed for packaging different size knee prostheses without the use of additional pack inserts. Requirements included the ability to maintain its shape and stability after cutting, despite the large undercuts for the screw head.

In food packaging area, Danish thermoformer Faerch Plast was recognised for its C-PET Soup-in-the-Air airline pack, which is designed to replace conventional aluminium trays. The company claims it is the only plastic soup bowl and lid system available for this market sector. Design challenges included the need to keep the soup in the bowl while allowing air pressure to equalise during flight, as well as the requirement to release steam when heated for 20 minutes to 185°C. Both are met by the use of a groove around the top edge of the pack.

UK thermoformer Protective Packaging Systems entered its 360° all-round hard drive packaging, which made in white recycled HDPE and is intended to replace foam or plastic end-cap solutions.

The company also submitted its clear A-PET Log-g clamshell pack for DIMM and SODIMM computer memory cards. The latter uses an electrostatically dissipative (ESD) A-PET material and features two diamond-shaped cavities to centralise up to 17 different card sizes in what PPS calls “stalactite and stalagmite geometry”. This has saved 80% in space terms without compromising on protection, it claims.

Dutch thermoformer Batelaan submitted parts for the Track T-800 diesel powered motorcycle. Seven covers in thermoformed Senosan ABS/PMMA multilayer sheet from Austrian sheet producer Senoplast substitute the polyester sheet moulding compound (SMC) used in the original design. The matt black, through-coloured parts require no painting.

At the time of the SPE conference in April, Batelaan was in the process of finishing the production tooling. The Track T-800 CDI Black Edition was unveiled by its producer, EVA Products, at the Utrecht motor fair in February and will launch in the Dutch market later this year, with European-wide availability expected in 2011.

Another motorcycle application was submitted by Portuguese motorcycle plastics accessories producer Polisport Plasticos in the form of an in-mould decorated mudguard in PP. The project extends the company’s established injection moulding in-mould decal label capability to decoration of a complete thermoformed part.

Italian thermoformer Solera submitted a twin-sheet tractor cab roof application in yellow ABS/PMMA and black ABS that is produced on a 3,000mm by 2,500mm Geiss T8 thermoforming machine. Gluing of separate sheets has been eliminated in this project. The twin-sheet solution also eases assembly of air conditioning, lighting and various electrical equipment.

Twin-sheet parts by Hombach of Germany, which recently took delivery of a Geiss T9 machine, were on display in the exhibition area. The T9 enables Hombach to produce twin-sheet in thin-wall and foamed core plastics and – through the use of halogen lamp heaters, servomotors and high speed 5-point toggle tool clamping – to do this on shorter cycle times.