Servo press used in test rig for improving high-volume moulding

The test laboratory for a large consumer products company was presented with a problem: to cope with higher consumer demand, the company needed to increase production of its recently introduced line of fabric softener products. Previous attempts to increase throughput had resulted in inconsistent product and increased scrap. This was due to the fact that at higher line speeds the fabric softener material would not flow through the mould quick enough to completely fill the cavity. And when pressure was increased on the moulding cylinders to compensate, it created a high occurrence of flash that had to be removed manually.

It was decided that a test station was required, and this incorporated an FEC 30kN enFORCE servo press to help determine the optimum cylinder pressure and speed for moulding the fabric softener material; the tests also assessed various mould shutoff designs. The FEC press benefits from an integral load cell and resolver to provide accurate control over every aspect of the movement such as start position, speed, speed change points and load hold time. It also enables the cycle and load-distance curve data to be viewed and saved in various formats for further analysis. A Main Unit system controller was also incorporated in this application to enable control and final data reporting to be transmitted to the PLC using Ethernet-I/P.

Lengthy part setup and customer training was minimised thanks to the enFORCE servo press software's innovative picture-based parameter setup screens. And, within just one hour of the machine's initial power-up, the customer had produced "the best product sample he had ever seen."

Follow the link for more information about the enFORCE servo press.