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FEATURE MACHINE BUILDING, FRAMEWORKS & SAFETY
sponsored by injecTion moulding
Taking a shoT aT energy efficienT
With energy efficiency becoming ever
more important for manufacturers, FANUC has designed and built an injection moulding
machine that is said to consume 10-15% less energy than the average all-electric machine
E
nergy prices are rocketing, resulting in many manufacturers seeking the most energy efficient machinery they can.
To help, Fanuc has developed ROBOSHOT, a range of highly energy-efficient injection moulding machines. The ROBOSHOT’s best-in-category energy
efficiency can largely be attributed to a combination of FANUC’s proprietary servo technology and smart energy recovery. “Rather than buying them in from a third-party
manufacturer, we build our own servo drives, meaning they are as energy efficient as is physically possible. This also enables us to specify servo drives that are the perfect match for each machine’s target performance, ensuring they deliver exactly the amount of power to the motor that it needs,” explained David Raine, ROBOSHOT sales manager UK and Ireland. In addition, the ROBOSHOT’s advanced
power regeneration feature enables intelligent energy recovery: when an axis decelerates, energy returns to the power source, adding to the overall savings. “When the equipment starts to decelerate and the motor is no longer required to drive a process,
it automatically switches to being a generator, feeding the electricity that is generated back through the system to another location on the machine where it is needed,” added Raine.
carbon neuTral manufacTuring
One company that has turned to this solution is Bloom-in-Box, a third-generation, family-run plastic injection moulding business grounded in an ethos of responsible consumption and production. A commitment to creating products with more than one life drives the company’s design and manufacturing activities, and in 2018 it earned Bloom-in-Box a place in the final of Best Recycled Plastic Product of the Year for its Bloomie floristry box. The Bloomie is made from 99% recycled material and is 100% recyclable. Any boxes that mould incorrectly are chopped up, passed through a grinder and made into security spikes. The company has been involved in injection
moulding for more than 20 years and has always been an advocate of electric moulding machines on the basis that they use up to 80% less energy than their hydraulic counterparts. So when significant growth meant the
The energy-efficient ROBOSHOT S150iA
company had reached maximum production capacity last year, it took the decision to invest in a new electric machine that would enable it to increase capacity by 25-40%. A roadmap to becoming carbon neutral
revealed that electricity was its biggest source of carbon emissions, accounting for 95% of its total emissions. To address this situation, in November 2021 Bloom-in-Box installed a 40kWp solar system that feeds directly into the factory. So when deciding which injection moulding machine to invest in, the company’s considerations were energy efficiency, production speed, quality, CNC reliability and repeatability. “In our opinion, FANUC machines are at the
top of the league table for energy efficiency in injection moulding,” commented Tom Reardon, production coordinator and robotics engineer at Bloom-in-Box. It is well known that all-electric injection
moulding machines use up to 80% less electricity than a hydraulic machine of a comparable size. According to the company, ROBOSHOT consumes 10-15% less energy than the average all-electric machine. The 150T clamp force ROBOSHOT S150iA in
operation at Bloom-in-Box runs at 2.9-3kW per hour for a six-second cycle (the longer the cycle the less energy consumed), reducing energy consumption by 20% versus previous generation electric machines in the plastic processor’s fleet. This represents a huge saving both in
terms of CO2 emissions and energy bills. Thanks to superior servo technology and
intelligent power regeneration capabilities, the energy-efficient ROBOSHOT S150iA installed at Bloom-in-Box’s Burscough facility uses just 3kW per hour, permitting it to be powered exclusively by renewable solar energy.
FANUC UK
www.fanuc.eu/uk/en
1 DESIGN SOLUTIONS NOVEMBER 2022 8
The Bloomie living vases are injection moulded using recycled material
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