MACHINERY | MATERIALS HANDLING
To ensure accuracy, the loader and three material hoppers operate on a loss-in-weight basis under simultaneous direction by the controller. “The MMT Micro Tower replaces elaborate and
often over-sized combinations of separate pieces of equipment with a single system for low-volume production,” said Frank Kavanagh, vice president of sales and marketing. The blower in the MMT is driven by a lightweight brushless motor. Filters are cleaned by Maguire’s patented dust-clearing blow-back system, and it is backed by a five-year warranty.
Six entrants to Motan’s innovation award will present their ideas to the jury in July
Jury decides in innovation award
Away from NPE, Motan has moved closer to picking a winner in its biennial innovation awards – choosing six entrants to present their ideas to the competition jury in July. All six nominees will present their ideas in detail. The winner will be announced at an award ceremony at the Fakuma exhibition in Germany, in October. The award is held every two years. Motan says that award encourages entrants to come up with
“resourceful ideas” – and exploit them to the full. “Too many good ideas are never developed or pursued,” said
Sandra Füllsack, managing director of Motan. “As a result, the industry loses enormous potential. We want to find these treasures which are often found inside people’s heads and left to languish.” The nominated project ideas are:
n Adaptive central vacuum control (Stefan Endres); n Controlled conveying of bulk solids (Peter Haupt); n Gravimetric, selective throughput control with batch traceability (Reinhard Herro);
n Local visualisation and control on a mobile device (Phillip Mählmeyer);
n An efficient, flexible system to install material and vacuum lines (Bernd Michael); and,
n Gentle pneumatic conveying of materials (Karl Wolfgang). The most important criteria for the jury of four were: degree of
innovation; relevance for practical use in the plastics industry; and, feasibility and market potential within materials handling. After the presentations, the six nominees will be whittled down
to three finalists. The winner will be announced at Fakuma. The jury will decide on the overall winner – and how the €20,000 prize money will be divided between the three finalists. As well as prize money, winners will receive support with patent
applications, and development of their innovation until it is ready for market.
38 FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION | May 2018
Conveying update Conair has updated its Wave Conveying materials handling system. The system now gives processors a range of options to control the vacuum conveying process. The patented system now makes it possible to move any resin, at virtually any speed, with higher throughputs, over longer distances without the damage to materials and equipment normally associated with conventional, dilute-phase vacuum conveying, says Conair. With material lines running through Conair’s
booth, the system will be a major feature of the company’s display at NPE. “We originally introduced this technology under the name R-Pro, or resin-protection conveying system,” said Chad Stover, marketing communica- tions manager at Conair. “Our focus then was on slow-speed, dense-phase conveying in order to prevent problems like angel hair and pellet fracturing. Since then, we have refined the concept to give processors the freedom to move different materials at the ideal speed for each application.” The system can also change speeds automati- cally when different resins are called for. Conair says the Wave Conveying system is the first vacuum-powered material-handling system to give processors precise control of material speed and material flow. It does this through the interac- tion of Conair’s FLX-128 Plus conveying control, a vacuum pump with a variable-frequency drive, and a control valve, with standard receivers and tubing. Starting at speeds of about 300 ft/min, the system draws material through in the form of compact pulses or waves, each separated by an air space. As velocity increases, the interval between the pulses becomes shorter, and the waves flow faster. Pellets do not become suspended in conveying air as they do in conventional high-speed systems. Instead, they look like waves as pellets roll and tumble along the bottom of the conveying line. The system’s ability to regulate the conveying
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