DKT: Maplan to double up on Industry 4.0

Kottingbrunn, Austria – At DKT 2018, Maplan will be exhibiting two fully automatic, Industry 4.0-compatible production cells at booth 203 in hall 12.

Using an MTF vertical machine and MHF horizontal machine combined with handling robots, processing peripherals and the C6000 machine control unit, trade visitors can check out the technical capabilities of Maplan’s elastomer injection moulding machinery and its potential for increasing production efficiency.

The company will also showcase its MTF 1500/280, a fully automated machining cell for manufacturing moulded rubber parts. The machine has a maximum injection volume of 1,500 ccm and a clamping force of 2,800 kN.

The unit is part of the redesigned series of fully hydraulic vertical machines with a new, optimised clamping unit concept, which has been enhanced by a very ergonomic operating height, a minimal platen deflection and high level of plane parallelism.

With a tie bar clearance of 680 mm, there is a lot of space for manual and automated manipulation of moulded parts. It is equipped with a 1500 cm³ FIFO injection unit, but could alternatively be combined with units of up to 4,000 cm³.

Maplan will produce luggage tags as a give-away, using a multi-cavity mould with a valve gate cold runner from PETA Formenbau GmbH.

To remove parts from the mould, the cavity-plate is extended using a sliding frame, the moulded parts are pneumatically demoulded before a conveyor belt takes the parts for further processing.

The parts are further processed at successive work stations, and are arranged as a “conveyor belt” by to the “SuperTrack” transport system from B&R Industrial Automation.

A six-axis robot manipulates the parts. The processing chain along the SuperTrack transfer includes positioning the moulded parts, after-cooling, flexibly configurable printing (provided by Bluhm Systeme GmbH) and a final inspection by a Cognex In-Sight vision system.

The printed finished parts are unloaded by a 6-axis robot combined with a conveyor belt.

The second exhibit is a MAPLAN horizontal machine MHF 700D/300 with 3000 kN clamping force and a 725 FIFO cm³ injection unit. The large support of the hydraulic clamping unit enables flexible securing of tools with large and small mould heights.

For more demanding applications, for example in combination with cold runners, the machine offers space for up to 6 temperature control units that are integrated into the machine frame.

The machine works with HTV silicone. A silicone stuffer unit with a hydraulic locking mechanism is used to supply the silicone to the plasticising unit. This produces ice cube trays using a 4-cavity cold runner mould from Franciacorta Stampi Srl.

The four cold runner nozzles are each electrically controlled, allowing their filling behaviour to be adapted. A six-axis robot from Stäubli Robotics, which is positioned directly on the injection side-machine platen to save space, uses a twofold Mexbert gripper system to extract the moulded parts and place them on a conveyor belt.

The starting basis for this is the C6000.web machine control unit, which communicates with robots and peripheral devices via the OPC/UA industry-standard interface and can also be linked to MES systems to exchange data within company networks.

This will be demonstrated in combination with an MES system from TIG. The machinery presentation will be rounded off by a demonstration of the Cure1 process control system’s potential. This system ensures a consistent quality of parts and harnesses maximum efficiency by reducing the heating period reserves.