Hot backup – High availability

METRO G – kombiniert das Beste aus zwei Welten / METRO G – combines the best of two worlds

MINIBLEND V - bewährte und zuverlässige Technik von motan und colortronic / MINIBLEND V - time-tested and reliable engineering from motan and colortronic

During this year’s Chinaplas in Shanghai from the 25th to the 28th of April in hall E1, motan-colortronic Plastics Machinery Co., Ltd (Taicang) will show that the combination of established technologies from both motan and colortronic is key. The focus will be the METRO G material loaders, which can now be fully integrated into existing colortronic systems. At the same time, existing colortronic material loaders can now be integrated into new motan systems. This offers maximum flexibility and saves costs. This highlight will be complemented with the new synchronous dosing unit MINIBLEND V, also a combination of time-tested and reliable engineering from colortronic and motan.

Modular building block principle enables optimal conveying

motan engineers have combined the best technology from motan and colortronic with the METRO G and extended it with new features. METRO G's modular building block system allows users to configure and create the optimal material loader for any application. Different sizes of material inlets which can be matched exactly to material throughputs and conveying distances, are now offered in addition to the various different material loader volumes. Modules with a tangential material inlet that operate with a cyclone effect are still available for materials with difficult separation behaviour. Customers can also choose between different vacuum valves. Thus, a standard unit can be upgraded to a clean room version with a special membrane vacuum valve. A dedusting module enables fine dust removal at the end of the conveying process in order to protect the following processing step when there is a particularly high demand for material quality. METRO G material loaders allow the configuration of a suitable conveying system for every individual requirement.

The METRO G material loaders can be operated either with a cost effective solution or right up to an innovative state-of-the-art controls system. To begin with, the customer can choose between three different loader controls. Furthermore, different centralized conveying controls are available: SELVAC 2 is a simple and time-tested electronic system which provides an economically priced solution. The METROnet S is considered part of the standard conveying systems as a soft PLC conveying control. The ultimate, network-compatible tool for complex conveying systems is the METROnet A, either with soft PLC or Siemens S7 PLC, with WEBpanel, and decentral CAN-bus nodes. All METROnet controls are completely integrated into the CONTROLnet platform and can be networked with other controls via Ethernet.

Synchronous dosing units improve recipe accuracy

Just like with the METRO G, time-tested and reliable colortronic mechanics have been combined with high-quality motan controls and have been extended with additional features for the MINIBLEND V. The volumetric dosing and mixing unit MINIBLEND V was designed for free and normal flowing materials and is ideal for translucent and opaque parts. As an additive dosing unit, the MINIBLEND is suitable for injection moulding and extrusion applications.

As a synchronous dosing unit the MINIBLEND V offers excellent recipe accuracy and reproducibility, which can be traced at any time. The additive is fed vertically and is gravity fed into the inlet of the processing machine through the Y-shaped mixing throat of the unit. This prevents material buildup and bridging effects. The main material and the additive combine just before the inlet of the processing machine. Only at this point do they flow together to create a homogenous mixture – without material segregation.

The particular benefit of disc dosing is the dosing consistency. Compared to screw dosing units, the dosing consistency at throughputs of 0.5 to 5 kg/h can be doubled. The dosing discs are available in three different versions (optional wear resistant versions) from 0.05 to 10.5 kg/h (bulk density 0.6 kg/h). When dosing very small throughputs, a single granule can have a huge effect on the mixture accuracy. In order to solve this problem, all dosing discs are fitted with a cutting device. This makes it possible to cut granules into smaller pieces in order to consistently dose the smallest throughputs.

The brushless motor can be removed very easily and without tools, and is fitted with integrated motor management, which provides maintenance-free and reliable continuous operation. The controls communication occurs via CAN-bus technology. The unit can be operated with the volumetric motan controls VOLU MC or VOLUnet MC. The VOLU MC controls are an economically priced solution for volumetric dosing of concentrates and master batches. The modern VOLUnet MC microprocessor controls with timer function feature simple and intuitive operation for an Ethernet TCP network connection. Using the intuitive touch screen colour display, an unproblematic operation of the additive auto calibration is possible and up to 50 recipes can be saved.

Moreover, motan-colortronic China will exhibit the whole range of solutions for plastics processing applications. The team of motan-colortronic China looks forward to showing the units and presenting “Hot backup – High availability”.