North East moulder invests in all-electric following business growth

An injection moulder based in the North East of England has invested in a new all-electric injection moulding machine following a period of growth.

Following a recent doubling in size of their County Durham based facility, IVM Ltd has taken delivery of a third Negri Bossi machine in the last 18 months.

The ELE all-electric machine was purchased primarily for IVM’s production of small clear products. These include polycarbonate optical lenses, light guides, and medical items. The machine will only ever run clear materials, avoiding any possibility of colour contamination.

The company’s MD, Ian Davidson, says he has already reported “significant quality and cycle time improvements” when running an existing six impression lens tool. This tool produces PC components weighing only one gram each, which previously ran on a similarly sized modern digital hydraulic machine.

“The level of performance that the new machine offers is extremely impressive,” Davidson said. “The original cycle time has been reduced from 23.5 to 17.8 seconds, and we believe that there are still more savings to find. Hold and cooling phases are obviously fixed, but we now have the ability to eject components ‘on the fly’, combined with significantly faster material injection rates and opening and closing speeds.”

IVM says the main motive for its investment was a gain in levels of accuracy and minimising levels of non-conforming product.

“Our six-impression lens tool has been running with a phenomenal 0.01mm variation in mould cushion. We are also able to inject material at much faster rates and with greater levels of control. This has minimised moulding defects such as material flow lines, as well as reduce levels of ‘start up scrap’, as we are achieving optimal processing levels very quickly,” Davidson added.

An ELE All-Electric machine will be on demonstration at this year’s PDM exhibition from 19th – 20th June at the Telford International Centre.