Zahoransky Formenbau GmbH
Zahoransky's headquarters in Freiburg, Germany.
James Snodgrass, Plastics News Europe
German mold maker Zahoransky Formenbau GmbH demonstrated its new SPCS Light technology at Fakuma.
Managing Director Michael Schmidt, said: "SCPS Light is the new version of the SCPS [servo-cavity position system] that we introduced a couple of years ago at the K show."
SCPS Light injection molds are said to be virtually identical in size to standard molds and are compatible with all standard injection molding machines. The system has been developed to "outsource" operating steps outside the mold to reduce cycle time.
Explaining the existing SCPS system, Schmidt said: "There are multiple servo axes in the mold but instead of rotating these we have a walking beam system to move cavities in the mold. And now we have developed that further on to a system called SCPS Light.
"[With SCPS Light] we have two servo axes in the mold. When the mold opens we shuttle on the outside, we fill and unload the products, while we mold the new ones. Then when the mold opens one plate shuttle goes in and the other one goes out."
The technology can be used to insert metal parts into a mold, for instance, then remove the pre-molded parts for cooling in a second station — throughout the whole machine cycle — in preparation for further processing. The example application in the demonstration video at Zahoransky's stand was the production of brush heads.
"In this case it's the Philips Sonicare toothbrush head," Schmidt said. "We bring the bristles into the mold, and we overmold directly with the handle.
"The big advantage with this technology is that normally a tool is designated to one product, because of its gate point. If you do indexing, you have a fixed point you use for rotating. Here, since we take the product out and put it in a new station, you can put any similar product into the same mold. So you can re-use the frame, so it's an investment that splits up into the mold base and into the cavity inserts. That's the big advantage. And we can go on a very small scale of machine."
The SCPS Light mold is controlled using an in-house control module that operates independently from the sequential run of the machine, communicating with the injection mould via a Euromap interface.
Zahoransky is based in Freiburg, Germany.
