MATERIALS PREPARATION | TECHNOLOGY


More control, less hot air in material dryers


Manufacturers are putting continuous innovation at the forefront of material drying technology.Peter Mapleston takes a look at new offerings from suppliers


Plastics processors want more from their drying equipment – and suppliers are obliging. Injection moulding companies are feeling a greater need to properly look after their feedstocks, as prices and delivery times rise for many polymers. With the increase in business, and global supply chains showing weaknesses, many equipment manufac- turers are revisiting their product lines to make beneficial changes that will pay off over the next several years, says the head of one major dryer manufacturer. “We need to keep that continuous improvement


process moving forward. It will only make the product better,” says Jason Sears, President of Dri-Air Industries. Many of those improvements are in controls and communications, fit for smart factories kitted out for the Internet of Things (IoT), alternatively called Industry 4.0. Latest development from Dri-Air is the Smart-


Touch Control (see also Injection World March 2021). Sears describes it as an operator friendly control system that has reporting and trending which allows documentation of the processes


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along with diagnostic capabilities for use by maintenance staff.


Dri-Air has two models of dryers, the Arid-X and


HP4-X dryers. The Arid-X dryer has been the company’s standard two bed dryer since 1985. For situations involving high levels of moisture materi- als and/or environments that are overly humid, Dri-Air recommends the HP4-X four-bed dryer. SmartTouch Control is now available for hopper


banks which Sears says opens up the communica- tions along with the diagnostics and trending. Hopper banks are built to order and can also be used with an existing dryer. “With material through- puts dropping in many areas, there are surplus dryers in a company. The larger sized dryers can be matched to a hopper bank that will utilise the forgotten, larger dryers to address smaller through- put applications.” Last year, Conair (now part of the Piovan Group,


but expected to continue operating as a separate entity) rolled out a new control platform for its various auxiliaries, featuring an HMI that it says offers a consistent user experience (menu, naviga-


March 2022 | INJECTION WORLD 33


Main image: A group of Maguire Ultra dryers in a centralised drying and distribution set-up


IMAGE: MAGUIRE


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