Peripherals join forces with the sector to improve its productivity through faster and more economical cycles

Good health depends on much of the food, both its quantity and quality. Something similar happens with the processes of transformation of plastics, whose success depends on the dosage of a feeder and the quality of the mixture of the material. In this sense, both feeders and mixers play a fundamental role in the optimization of the process. The market is a great showcase where buy devices that meet the needs of each transformation process and increasingly, will bring benefits such as reduction of energy expenditure and material as well as a high precision.

The segment of the peripherals has always been an important pillar of the total volume of sales of plastics in Spain industry. Despite a slowdown in the market and economic uncertainty, feeders and mixers is a segment that has been able to stay, thanks in part to the need of the transformer to have a good team in each production process and above all, the constant technological changes that improve each of them.

While some companies have seen a significant reduction in the sale of peripheral, other companies that dedicate part of its activity to the sale of this type of machines indicate that their numbers increase, caused, to a large extent by the automation.

A way to reduce production costs and sometimes increase the accuracy of the processes is to invest in the automation of routine processes such as food, in the improvement and expansion of the production plants, the updating of old equipment and the installation of centralized systems for transport of materialwithout forgetting, save to maximize the management of materials.

The storage, transport and the dosing of materials have begun to be treated as key parts to achieve a higher rate of competitiveness in the Spanish market.

On the other hand, all the agents that are conducive to the demand and the development of the sector of peripherals have to deal with two major challenges: a challenge is the price of the raw material, and the second corresponds to the consequences of globalization in the form of product of countries of the East entranceChina and India. However, in the hands of the client remains the war because, will be this which should evaluate the quality of the product purchased. Market trend suggests that the decision on the acquisition of a team going through the analysis of the investment, the costs of production, the maintenance/time spent on cleaning, depreciation, not just the final price of the machine. The flexibility is currently valued to frequent changes, few times and speed of cleaning, aspects offered by the gravimetric units.

Today, in the market to find suppliers of feeders and mixers of high level allowing substantial savings in material, high quotas of precision, long life of products, ergonomic forms that adapt to machines, use and maintenance facilities and, cleaning for the user. They also have options of price control, reducing costs by improving controls and interfaces that enable greater information on the degree of power, the amount of weight in the hopper of food storage, and the total weight of the ingredient presented in a way more simple and quick for the operator.

To the steady increase in prices of resins and additives (colourings, retardant) fire, pigments, expensive stabilizers based on metal, additives for thermoplastics technical transformers are looking for new ways to reduce costs and improve productivity and, literally, to make each granule important. Traditionally, the feeders have been volumetric units substantially cheaper than the gravity feeders of high precision. However, many transformers are able to achieve success with the volumetric feeders in less demanding production processes, so that there is still place in the market for them. However, the gravity feeders offer a number of advantages such as the autocalibración or a lower maintenance than the volumetric feeders. In addition, they have sophisticated controls that facilitate the programming and operation. The new teams have other advantages as the design of the feeder that they manage to increase the production capacity of an extruder, reduce the consumption of expensive products such as additives and respond to the demand for greater precision in dosing.

Below you'll find some peripherals that demonstrate the tendency to offer complete and technologically qualified solutions.

The new feeders with subway system distributed by commercial Coscollola immediately replace all models previous, available in all markets in the world.

Most innovative design, with the hose subject to the body of the apparatus, the new feeders have well ordered cables in a multi-function panel. Most of the models are available in version glass or stainless steel. There is the possibility of acquiring equipment with two inputs or adapt them to after the event.

The new system of Motan Metro FC, represented by Coscollola commercial, S.L., offers a reliable solution, safely and economically which automatically limits the speed of the air to 25 m/s. allows a reduction of wear of tubes less "angel hair" as well as a reduction of the maintenance.

The advantages of the new system of Motan are various: it avoids the need to use either electricity or compressed air, works in all the ranges of temperature of the vacuum system and also offers the possibility to carry out your installation in existing plants exposed to high wear, also facilities outside Motan, whether it's a single feeder as if it is a group of feeders or a complete system of transport.

The feeders that distributes the signature Polymerland Guzmán contribute to improve the productivity of the plastic processing industry.

Control microprocessor that make up the feeder allows to boot gradually the motor of the pump with the function Soft Start, to limit the wear of the wiper. This function allows to tension gradually the engine through a ramp to boot, annulling the instantaneous bursts.

The characteristics of this series include:

• Soundproof protection of galvanized steel.

• Cleaning of the filter with stream of air compressed by accumulator.

• Filter in fabric of polyester with wide filtration surface. O-ring in the lid and two shutdown hooks.

• Download of output with torus.

Electric control to microprocessor interface, simple and rational, allows to perform the following functions: the management of loading times, management of the cleaning of the filter, display the alarm due to lack of cargo as well as the visualization of the alarm by rupture of the wiper of the engine.

Optionally, the ballasts integrated valves provides and an acoustic alarm.

TSM Control Systems has released the mixer for polymer pellets or totally new liquid of the Opti-Mix series with its range of performance of process from the 1 to 200 kg/h. uses four chutes for easy Assembly with integrated individual Mezzaluna valves for rapid material changes and a well known patented mixer spindle of flight-inverse. With the new technology of Opti-Mix, the precision of dosing of material combined with the quality of the final product ensures homogeneity of mixtures and constant savings of Masterbatch.

The Opti-Mix mixer incorporates a touchscreen remote color which simplifies the change and the selection of the recipe. The TFT VGA display is extremely easy and provides intuitive alerting. Up 100 pre-programmed recipes of work are immediately accessible, allowing "underway" rapid changes in the order. The recipe selection allows a new work to be uploaded immediately, including percentages of the mixture or size of the job. While work is progressing the operator can see "set" and the "real" recipes for mixing, material weights and values of the throughput (kg/h) or Gm/m.

Other available features include; and detachable mixing chamber to facilitate the quick and safe cleaning and its removable electronic console. Delivered as standard and option CAN or Profibus Ethernet protocol, together with the software via USB and SD memory card downloads make this mixer a lasting solution. Operators can also benefit to e-mail alerts and reports via e-mail available as standard in the new solution of the TSM Opti-Mix mixer.

Mixers which sells Caufar, specializing in machinery periferica for the plastic industry, are used for all kinds of materials and additives, master, powder, liquid or any other material.

Interior steel stainless and totally open, allows an absolute purity of the mixture as a quick and complete cleaning.

The MZ series quickly mixes everything (50 kg) in approximately 5 minutes record time.

The smallest gravimetric mixer in the world now has a brother with similar capabilities: though the new mixer MicroPlus (TM) of Maguire Products, Inc. (marketed by Alimatic) adapts to the capabilities of processing machines of 45 to 160 kg per hour instead of the 45 kg of the popular MicroBlender (R)offers the same ease of use to reduce downtime during change of color or work.

Like the MicroBlender, the MicroPlus has four hoppers that are removable for easy cleaning and a change of product rapid. The hoppers are typically used for natural resin, recovered material, color and additive. While dispensers in three of the hoppers systems are vertical pneumatic valves, there is an angular valve in the hopper for recovered material, which sometimes flows poorly in comparison with the other ingredients. "Vertical valves are particularly important for precise dosage of minor as dye ingredients, while the angular valve provides a flow improved for the ingredients in large quantities or materials that have large or variable particle sizes", said B. Patrick Smith, Vice President of marketing and sales.

For machine configurations that involve the use of porters on the mixer, Maguire created an optional pneumatic system, with patent-pending, which reduces even more change to automatically lift the lids hopper that porters are mountedwhich facilitates the process of obtaining access to the hoppers and the lower part of the Chargers.

Now there are more than 4,000 MicroBlenders in operation, according to Smith, and Maguire recently improved the system to turn hoppers in stainless steel to give them greater resistance to corrosion and surface damage, and by incorporating vertical valves again design with greater resistance to atasques them. These improvements are also standard in the new mixer MicroPlus.

Another standard feature of the MicroPlus is a controller recently upgraded for the entire line of mixers of Maguire, with a limited number of improvements to provide more ease of use, more extensive communications with other systems, and more flexible facilities. Alternatively, customers can also specify the display driver sensitive to the touch of the company, which is also new, wireless connectivity and built-in Ethernet architecture.

The system of dosage and homogenization FGB-5 of Gravimix which sells Caufar, is designed for precise and efficient dosing of thermoplastic materials dry and loose. The FGB-5 is especially suitable for the injection machines, extrusion and blow molding, where consistency and high quality of the finished product is required.

Gravimix registers the exact consumption of all materials, allowing a precise calculation of the costs of production. Due to the high dosing precision and consistency, you can reduce the percentage of an additive to lower tolerance limits without affect or cause a loss of quality.

The FGB-5 is suitable for the dosage of primary materials (granular), crushed loose, masterbatches and additive. The dosing system can be installed directly on the machine, and a platform or next to the machine. The pieces are easy to disassemble, which ensures the speed of cleaning and change of materials.

The components are ground one after another in the pesadora cell, which is supported by a system of precise weighing. After the heavy, the complete set is downloaded in a House of homogenization and the horizontal mixer provides a regular mix. A level in the House of homogenization sensor controls the entire cycle of mixing. The FGB-5 is a system of homogenization economic and easy to use.

It has a nominal capacity of 355 to 945 kg/h and is suitable for between two and six components. Account with different control systems, compact and robust and integrates the system "Auto-Pulse".

Process Control as a new Member of the already existing family Guardian presents a gravimetric mixer with integrated material powder dispenser.

The history of the Guardian began in 1998 with a model for a batch of 5 kg and with 4 components. Today provides Process Control models for lots from 0.125 kg to 18 kg. with capacities of up to 3.000 kg/h and a maximum of 12 components by mixer.

Last year introduced Process Control a Guardian with dispenser of crushed and now as a last innovation a version with the integrated material powder dispenser. This also allows the user to introduce very accurately loads in bulk in the form of powder in a mixture homogeneous in low-cost applications. The element of the Guardian for the powder is based on the renowned design of the dispenser of material in powder form of the PF series, which is also supplied as a single team or as an element of a continuous gravimetric mixer.

The material in powder dispenser is made of polished stainless steel and can be removed to clean in a few seconds for the change of material. A large selection of diameters of spindles and designs in combination with different gear ratios, offers the possibility of dosed material powder complicated with different capacities of dosage. The agitator driven separately with adjustable speed ensures an effective dissolution of the bridges that may form during the process.

Just like all the other components the percentage of the component is inserted into dust in the table of command and Service Process Control Mini-Op, which has an area of pleasant. After pressing the key RUN starts the computer to automatically produce the desired mixture.