Sikora’s
machinery feature | Control & instrumentation The Planowave 6000 contributes to the reproducibil-
Planowave 6000 is a
non-contact thickness
measurement system for
plastic sheet
ity of processes as well as the highest quality and productivity during the sheet extrusion, says Sikora.
High concept Mesys of Germany has developed a new concept gauge that promises highly accurate measurement and adjustment of film thickness during production. The company says that its online measurement and
control system will improve final product quality. The system combines a traditional scanning gauge with an array of sensors in fixed positions across the measuring frame. This allows the customer to make a complete mapping of film thickness, across the width of the web. “Today, this is not possible with standard scanning gauges,” says the company. It says that a standard scanning system cannot
handle thickness variation in the machine direction – which is typically caused by the extrusion screw and other factors. This affects the automatic regulation of the die bolts, resulting in poor product quality. The new system uses more sensors – and higher mapping resolution – to regulate the die bolts correctly, and produce a higher quality product, says Mesys. At last year’s K2016, it launched a near-infrared EVOH thickness sensor.
Smashing advance Isra Vision says that its Smash system offers an efficient way to monitor properties such as the coating thickness of optical films – in order to ensure uniformity and product quality. Monitoring optical properties such as gloss and haze
helps to ensure that products work in a uniform way. This new dimension of inspection performance and
BST’s PC16S-
wave transmis- sion sensor does not rely on ionising
electromag- netic waves
precision expands the focus of inspection from mere defect detection to include monitoring material property directly inline, says the company. The system uses high-precision analysis of incident light to provide comprehensive information about all aspects of quality. It recently upgraded Smash by incorporating its
Touch & Inspect system architecture – which allows the creation of a Wi-Fi controlled surface inspection system, integrated into a collaborative network. All system components, such as lighting and cameras, are connected via Wi-Fi, so that they can be controlled with mobile communication devices such as tablet PCs. The Touch & Inspect systems can also interconnect with one another to exchange data or make data available in a structured database for later analysis. The company also offers its switchable Smart Line LED illumination, which has been used for defect inspection. In one application, Pattern LED Illumination, it creates different light incidence angles by varying lighting patterns – similar to manual inspection, where the quality inspector moves a sample of the film around to view it in different light conditions. This reveals defects and inhomogeneities in and on the film. For example, it allows reliable detection of scratches in the micrometer range under production conditions. Optical properties such as gloss and haze can be
inspected with the same hardware – but new software technology. The thickness and evenness of a material or material application can be monitored in the same way. To achieve this, Isra uses the light-absorbing properties of plastic films, for instance, to detect deviations from a desired set-point. Results are converted into user-friendly graphics to highlight inhomogeneities in the optical properties.
Enhanced testing Testing Machines Inc (TMI) has released enhanced versions of its digital micrometer series for thickness testing of very thin materials including plastic films and battery separators. The devices have long been to measure the thick- ness of a variety of sheet-like materials. The latest
14 FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION | March 2017
www.filmandsheet.com
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