WITTMANN BATTENFELD will present the latest injection moulding machines, process technology, automation and auxiliaries at Mexico's Plastimagen in Mexico at its booth No. 714 in Hall D.
Wittmann Battenfeld
Given Mexican market’s great significance for the WITTMANN Group, the Plastimagen is an important platform to showcase its latest technologies jointly with its local subsidiary, Wittmann Battenfeld México S.A. de C.V.
From its extensive range of machinery, WITTMANN will exhibit a machine from each of its MacroPower and SmartPower series, as well as a machine from the EcoPower series running on direct current, and a MicroPower designed for high-precision injection moulding of micro parts.
- MacroPower 700/5100 is equipped with a WX143 robot from WITTMANN, which removes the parts and deposits them on a conveyor belt. One of the MacroPower machines’ outstanding features is their compact design, helping users save valuable space on their production floor.
- Wittmann 4.0 demo cell is based on a SmartPower 120/350. The machine comes with the new Unilog B8X control system. A Primus 116 robot from WITTMANN, two Tempro plus D temperature controllers, two Gravimax blenders and a Drymax beside-the-press dryer are integrated in the system as well.
- The EcoPower 180/750+ DC machine is powered by a solar electricity storage battery and is equipped with a Primus 126T robot with a load capacity of up to 10 kg. With this system, a crinkle box will be produced from PP, using a single-cavity mould coming from Haidlmair, Austria.
- MicroPower 15/10 uses a 4-cavity mould with nano structures made by 3D printing and coming from NanoVoxel, Austria. Its main advantage is minute structures produced within a very short time and at low cost. At the Plastimagen, a platelet measuring 8.5 by 8.5 mm with a world map showing all of WITTMANN’s production sites will be produced for demonstration purposes.
Automation and auxiliaries
Wittmann Battenfeld's robots will include a WX142 model and a WX143. These stand out by their great versatility in their functionalities as parts removal appliances or as components of automation systems.
For instance, their R9 robot control system includes a QuickNew wizard, which leads operators through a user-friendly animated menu to enable very easy creation of parts removal and depositing programs. The TextEditor supports line-based programming, ensuring complete freedom for program sequences.
The company will also exhibit two Drymax dry air dryer models, a Drymax primus and a Drymax basic, plus a complete drying system consisting of a Drymax 300 battery dryer connected with two Silmax drying hoppers, each with 600 l capacity. The dry air dryers from the Drymax series are equipped with two desiccant cartridges and deliver continuous process air of constant dry air quality. The insulated Silmax drying hoppers come with the automatic, intelligent SmartFlow air distribution system as standard, which ensures a demand-based flow rate of dried air through the plastic granulate. To accommodate low material throughput rates, a compressed air dryer from the Card series will also be on display.
WITTMANN’s portfolio of temperature controllers will be represented by models from both the Tempro plus and the Tempro basic series. The appliances from the Tempro plus series offer a high level of user friendliness and an extensive range of standard equipment. Their combination with digital flow rate devices, such as the WFC or the Flowcon plus, provides an intelligent temperature and flow control system for monitoring or automatic regulation of the flow rates.
The presentation of material loaders will include a Feedmax basic, a Feedmax plus and a Feedmax Clean for central materials handling systems, as well as a Feedmax S3 Net stand-alone loader for short-distance conveyance. The Feedmax Clean loader with dedusting function was specially developed to meet the increasingly stringent demands of circular economy and the resulting increase in plastic granulates with dust content. The Feedmax Clean has reached an extremely high level for the extraction of dust and particulate matter from regrinds.
Dosing technology will be represented by the Gravimax 34 gravimetric appliance. The gravimetric blenders from WITTMANN are easy to operate, with outstanding features such as high-precision material valves, detachable stainless steel hoppers with corner windows, a removable weighing container and a highly efficient spiral mixer. High-precision dosing results down to single grams are secured by real-time weighing (RTLS). These can be retrieved for documentation via an OPC UA interface.
A selection from the wide range of WITTMANN granulators will also be shown, including an S-Max 2 plus, an S-Max 3 screenless granulator, as well as the G-Max 23 and G-Max 33 cutting mill models. The granulators from the S-Max series are slowly rotating grinders used for in-line recycling of sprue from hard and brittle engineering plastics. The appliances from the G-Max series are compact beside-the-press granulators laid out for grinding soft to medium hard engineering plastics.
In the field of central material supply, the company will present various central materials handling systems in addition to the drying system. The E-Max 2 is a cost-friendly solution for controlling medium-sized conveyance systems with up to 22 conveying stations. The M8 network control, preferably used for running entire systems, comes with a modular design and supervises the system from the material infeed station by way of access control, provides information about the status of the drying system and secures correct material feeding to every machine via an RFID-controlled Codemax coupling station.