Fakuma 2017: ENGEL e-mac series expanded on the upper end

The new ENGEL e-mac 280 will be presented for the first time at the Fakuma 2017, from October 17 to 21 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. "Increasingly larger moulds with more cavities are being used in the teletronics and technical moulding industries in order to increase space productivity and cost efficiency", explains Friedrich Mairhofer, Product Manager for electrical machines at the injection moulding machine manufacturer ENGEL in Schwertberg, Austria. "With the expansion of the series, we are taking this trend into account."

Delicate component structures with the highest reproducibility

With the production of connector housings on an e-mac 940/280, ENGEL will be presenting a typical application for this series at the Fakuma. Following the injection moulding, the connector housing will be equipped with stabiliser inserts, gaskets and contact pins. Therefore, the precision and consistency of the injection moulding machine are decisive factors in the competitiveness of the producer. This explains why production in this market segment tends to be all-electric, even though with cycle times of six seconds and more the demand on the performance of the injection moulding machine is lower than in the high performance area.

The connector housings produced at Fakuma will contain 40 contact pins, resulting in correspondingly thin stays and small knockouts inside the housing. The e-mac machine makes sure that very thin-walled areas are filled, even across long flow paths.

The e-mac machine is equipped exclusively with exceptionally powerful servo drives. The ejection and clamping are also handled servo-electrically. This guarantees the best possible precision and process stability while maximising the effectiveness of the machine as a whole. The drives are operated in an axis system solution with a stabilised intermediate circuit. The short cycle times are achieved in part by the parallel movements of the drive axes.

With the CC300 control, the e-mac machine offers total flexibility in the integration of robots and additional peripherals, as well as the use of intelligent assistance systems from ENGEL's inject 4.0 programme. Three of these systems are being used at the Fakuma: iQ weight control, which maintains the volume of melt injected throughout the injection moulding process, thus compensating for fluctuations in the environmental conditions and raw material, iQ clamp control, which automatically computes and adjusts optimal clamping force based on the mould breathing, and iQ flow control for the energy reducing, needs-based adjustment of the mould temperature control.

Fig.:  During the Fakuma, the new e-mac 280 will demonstrate its performance with the production of connector housings.

High performance with a small footprint

Another advantage of the e-mac series is its compact design, which saves a significant amount of space in the production hall. Using an optimised toggle design, ENGEL has managed to make the clamping unit of the new e-mac 280 significantly shorter without reducing the opening stroke.

The first e-mac injection moulding machines entered the market in 2012. Since then, ENGEL has covered the entire range of requirements in the all-electric area of the injection moulding industry. While the high-performance machines of the e-motion and e-cap series have established themselves for high-speed and multi-component applications, especially in the medical and packaging industries, the e-mac series provides a very economic alternative for applications in the electronics industry and in technical injection moulding.

ENGEL at Fakuma 2017: Hall A5, stand 5204

www.engelglobal.com