One May 27 to 28, more than 2,000 guests from 45 countries followed the invitation by the Austrian injection molding machine manufacturer ENGEL to share the success of the ENGEL Symposium held at St. Valentin and Linz, Austria. The number of attendees is a new record.
During the event, ENGEL presented 17 innovative exhibits that focused on high productivity and low energy consumption. On top of this, visitors had the opportunity to update their skills by attending talks on the latest trends in the plastics industry.
At the symposium, ENGEL showed some highly groundbreaking solutions, such as the ENGEL clearmelt process. To do so, the manufacturing of a cover for an automobile interior with visually impressive 3D effects and excellent scratch resilience was demonstrated during the symposium. The production system for the demonstration used sliding table technology to inject transparent polyurethane over a thermoplastic carrier. Compared to legacy approaches – such as multiple layer coating – excellent productivity and thin layers are the major benefits. The partners in this project were Schöfer (product idea and mould), Hennecke (PUR machine), Votteler (PUR), Burg Design (foil) and Bayer (carrier material).
The presentation of ENGEL onyx was another highlight. ENGEL onyx is a new carbide coating for screws which improves both the coating toughness and the bonding force by 300 percent. The unique selling point of the new ENGEL onyx coating is the evenly spread coating of carbide metal over the whole screw contour with an extremely high bonding potential and improved robustness.
Last but not least, ENGEL ecodrive introduced the new energy-saving drive system for the ENGEL victory and ENGEL duo machines. The new servo-hydraulic economises with energy: In contrast to the standard hydraulics with asynchronous motor used previously, the new system has a fixed displacement pump and servomotor. The ENGEL ecodrive gives manufacturers the ability to keep the speed down to the required level when the machine is running. In other words, the drive is only active during movements.
Source: plastics.2456.com
