WITTMANN BATTENFELD
On a large machine from the MacroPower series, WITTMANN BATTENFELD will demonstrate its newly developed sandwich process at this year’s Fakuma in hall B1, booth 1204.
Sandwich technology is popular in the market primarily wherever thick-walled parts must be produced, or where regrind can be used as a filler. This technology has a long tradition at WITTMANN BATTENFELD and is now available for the MacroPower machine series.
In the engineering concept adopted by WITTMANN BATTENFELD, the main injection unit is placed in the standard position (H) at the centre, the second injection unit in an angled position behind the main aggregate, in a Y configuration. This arrangement of the aggregates offers numerous advantages, starting with comfortable access to the nozzles and barrel from both sides, which makes maintenance easy and safe, and also facilitates barrel change. Material feeding with standard material loaders is also possible. Furthermore, the position of the second aggregate in Y configuration favors short flow paths. The horizontal position of the injection units keeps the overall height of the machine low, which ensures easy installation of automation equipment. In this way, low ceilings in production halls present no problems either for the “sandwich machine” from WITTMANN BATTENFELD.
Thanks to the central position of the main aggregate, the machine can also be used for single-component tasks without having to be converted. All that is necessary is to switch off the second injection unit and deactivate it in the control system. The two aggregates can also be separated by a simple conversion process, thus making it possible to use the machine for standard multi-component applications. So the machine is a genuine all-rounder, which can be flexibly adjusted to the injection moulder’s specific requirements.
Foaming of the core component to produce extremely lightweight parts with an attractive surface, an application for which the sandwich process is frequently used, can also be integrated in this machine. For this purpose, WITTMANN BATTENFELD recommends its CELLMOULD structured foam process developed in-house, including the complete hardware package.
As a special highlight, the newly developed sandwich nozzle should also be mentioned, which stands out by its simple structure – making it possible to clean the nozzle from the front for quick color change. Moreover, the sandwich nozzle can be rotated by 180 degrees to offer a free choice of combinations between individual injection units and nozzle channels and so the injection units for the main and core components can be exchanged without any problems.
At the Fakuma, “Lechuza” flowerpots will be manufactured from PP with foamed PP for the core component on a MacroPower 450/5100H/2250Y, using a single-cavity mold supplied by geobra Brandstätter, Germany. The parts will be removed and deposited on a conveyor belt by a WITTMANN robot from the new pro series, a W843 pro.
