TECHNOLOGY | MATERIALS PREPARATION


Right: Wittmann’s ATON H1000 battery dryer with ECO drying wheel


protocol for Industry 4.0 communications, can be networked with the dryer to provide customers with even more information, all designed to help users monitor, control, and improve the injection moulding process.


“Customers who use this control want the ability


to gather and monitor more data about their drying and production process,” Sears says. “The control is user-friendly and able to communicate with other sensors used on dryers and on other auxiliary equipment. With a touch of the screen, an operator will be able to access, through the HMI, the drying parameters such as drying temperature and dew point for the last week of production. They can then download the data to an SD card if the data is necessary for reporting. These control features will help injection moulders that need to be certified.” He says: “If you are a medical moulder, this is prime for monitoring the temperature set point, the actual temperature and the dew point. Monitoring that information and sending it back to a central monitoring system is important if you have to be certified to produce the part. It’s about gathering information to improve the resin, to achieve a better process and to make a better product more consistently. The control is plug-and-play and will be able to adapt to future technology.” In order to manage all the data, Sears suggests


Below: Maguire Ultra dryers at Jasplastik’s injection moulding facility in Slovakia


that users might need a MES. Customers of the new control will be able to use the data it gener- ates for predictive maintenance. “Many companies are operating with fewer maintenance people on the production floor,” Sears says. “The more information they can get about motors being imbalanced, filters being plugged or sensors approaching the end of their lifespan, the sooner they can do that predictive maintenance before it becomes an emergency. It’s hard to keep track of maintenance on 20 dryers and all the other


equipment. This will help them do that.” Sears adds that Dri-Air decided to move forward with the new control even though Industry 4.0 guidelines for dryers have not yet been developed by Euromap, the organisation that is leading information-protocol development for the plastics industry in Europe. “They are taking the lead on developing the information that will be exchanged between all the different pieces of equipment,” he says. “When Euromap comes up with the exact data tags for dryers, we will have our new control in place, and it will accommodate those data tags. Data tags allow similar machines in the same network to share information more efficiently. Customers who already have the new control will be able to update their software with the Euromap data tags.” Two of the reasons why plastics processors are switching from desiccant dryers to the Ultra vacuum dryer from Maguire are speed and energy efficien- cy, according to Paul Edmondson, Managing Director, Maguire Europe. “Speed is a critical advantage in start-ups and product changeovers,” he says. “A case in point is that of Jasplastik, the largest injection moulder in Slovakia, with more than 100 presses producing automotive components and television panels. In recent years the company began purchasing Ultra dryers and now operates 20 of them, including the Ultra 150 and Ultra 300 models. Jasplastik uses the machines to dry polyam- ide, polycarbonate, ABS and PC/ABS resins. It reports that the dryers need only 30 minutes to reach proper drying temperature and dry the materials in cycles of only 10-20 minutes. In general, the drying cycle of an Ultra dryer is only one-sixth as long as that of a typical desiccant dryer.” He continues: “Another advantage of Ultra dryers cited by Jasplastik is energy savings. Although the Ultra dryer uses about the same


36 INJECTION WORLD | March 2020 www.injectionworld.com


IMAGE: MAGUIRE


IMAGE: WITTMANN


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