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Energy efficient adhesive coating

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Energy efficient adhesive coating

The next generation of ITW Dynatec Dynamelt™ S Series Adhesive Supply Units have been designed to reduce the amount of energy required to operate efficiently, thereby also reducing their TCO (total cost of ownership).

Reducing energy consumption.
The new Dynamelt™ S unit consumes 20% less energy and significantly less air than similar adhesive supply units while advanced diagnostics, quick-change components and a larger filtration surface significantly reduce maintenance cycles and required labour. Modular parts – including pumps, filters and electronics – combined with simplified maintenance procedures reduce the amount of time operators and engineers need to spend keeping this already efficient adhesive supply unit running at maximum capacity.

Dynamelt

Longer lasting parts.
Nanotechnology has been used with a new nano ceramic hopper coating which is 5 times more durable than competitive PTFE coatings to withstand wear.


All system parameters at a glance.
The display on the new ITW Dynatec Dynamelt™ S Series Adhesive Supply Units is intuitive and easy to read, which combined with the significant energy saving features makes the Dynamelt™ S Series a smart choice for the cost and energy conscious coater.

Efficient coating and laminating.
Universal Converting Equipment recommend the Dynamelt™ range of hot melt adhesive supply units for use with Universal range of coating and laminating equipment. ITW Dynatec equipment and parts are supplied in the United Kingdom by Universal Adhesive Systems Limited.

 

 

Actively reducing energy usage

Reducing energy consumption and costs with a Slitter Rewinder

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Efficient slittingIndustrial machinery has a reputation for being noisy and it’s taken for granted that ear protection needs to be worn when working with very large machines, but how often have you walked past a noisy machine only to realise it doesn’t appear to be actually doing anything? The energy consumption of large processing, printing, packaging and converting facilities can be so large that it puts a dent in a company’s bottom line, and by reducing energy consumption companies are not only helping protect the environment they are also protecting their profitability.

Most companies would love to be able to claim they are actively reducing their energy usage, but making these claims a reality can be a big challenge, especially in a large company with an established culture of process routine (which in themselves are by no means a negative effort). There are very easy ways in which companies can instantly reduce their energy usage, by powering down inactive machines between jobs (for example), but such simplistic moves can be very low impact and the resulting dent in productivity can be damaging to profitability.

If companies can’t make big savings by changing the way they work maybe they can actively reduce their energy usage by carefully choosing the tools they work with. Energy efficient slitter rewinders can reduce energy usage by powering down components not being used for some jobs, but there are more ways that the machinery manufacturers can fundamentally reduce energy usage, and most start on the drawing board.

Here are Universal Converting Equipment we design the majority of our slitters and winders to use the brake energy from the unwind shaft to power the rewind shaft, thereby drastically reducing the overall energy consumption of our machinery. This is just one example of the innovative ways Slitter Rewinders are designed and built at a controls level and how these ideas can reduce your energy costs, there are also many mechanical ways that waste can be reduced.

It may seem unusual to discuss slitter rewinders without talking about the materials they process, and by carefully handling and processing the material web as it is processed further savings can be made. Material waste can be reduced by using a machine designed to have a very short web path, this reduces the amount of material wasted when setting the machine up for each job. Ensuring that knives and cores are accurately set up (perhaps with automated systems) greatly reduces the amount of material that is spoilt, and therefore wasted. Reducing energy consumption with your Slitter Rewinder requires a holistic approach.

Slitter Rewinders designed with closed tension control, knife alignment, laser core alignment and web-guiding don’t only ensure an exceptionally high quality of wound rolls, they also reduce energy usage and material waste.

So when purchasing a new Slitter Rewinder ask your supplier what they are doing to reduce the energy consumption of their machines, it could make a big difference to your profitability. But these savings aren’t only available to companies investing in new machinery; here at Universal Converting Equipment we help our customers reduce energy consumption while improving reliability and profitability by building new control systems for old and third party slitter rewinders, after all one of the best ways to reduce overall energy consumption is to actively recycle!

Further reading on slitter efficiency:

Ideas for efficient converting…

Laser core alignment, what’s in the kit and how does it work?

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Laser core alignmentThere has recently been a surge of interest in our laser core alignment system, so we have written this post to explain how the system is installed and how it works.

Core positioning.
We fit our ComputaCore Laser Core Alignment System to many of the slitters we manufacture, and we also offer our laser core alignment system as a kit for installation on slitters made by other manufacturers.  A measurement is taken from a fixed point (a ‘datum’) to ensure that the position of the cores is correct in relation to the slitter knives.  We have a great deal of experience in upgrading third party machinery and if you feel you would benefit from a more integrated approach to controlling your slitter rewinder we can replace the control system.

Installation.
The ComputaCore Laser Core Alignment System has been designed to be very easy to install on almost any slitter and while the majority of our customers use their own engineers to install the system one of our engineers can install the system for you if required.

The laser core alignment kit consists of four main components:

  1. Laser pointer
  2. A linear actuator rail (manufactured to the correct width for your slitter)
  3. A control box with touchscreen
  4. Instruction manual

We do not provide the support arms that hold the laser core alignment system above the slitter rewind shafts, but can fabricate these for you for a small additional cost.

Core sizes.
We are often asked which cores sizes the laser core alignment system is compatible with, and the short answer is ‘all of them’ – because the laser pointer beams a line of light across the rewind shafts it does not matter what diameter your cores are, the line of light will still be in the correct place for your operator to correctly align them.

Conclusion.
Installing a Universal ComputaCore Laser Core Alignment System is simple and will greatly reduce job set up time while increasingly accuracy.

Slitter web guiding made simpler and greener

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Energy efficient converting machineryUniversal Converting Equipment focus on re-usable energy and ease of use for their web guiding system.

As a part of their commitment to ‘actively reduce energy usage’ Universal Converting Equipment have developed a ‘regenerative’ web guiding system. The ‘Converter Guide 4’ is a simple to use web guiding system designed as an upgrade for slitters and winding machines, or as a replacement for obsolete or inefficient guiders. The guider is operated via a touchscreen interface which is very simple to use.

The Converter Guide 4 web guider is energy efficient partly because it uses electric linear actuators instead of dirty and inefficient hydraulics. A typical guider actuator spends as much time braking as it does motoring, we store the energy produced by braking to be utilised during the motoring phases of operation, thereby reducing the overall energy consumption of the web guider.

The Converter Guide 4 web guider is designed to retrofit onto a wide range of slitting machines such as Atlas, Titan, Kampf, Goebels, Parkland, Cameron, Elite, Dusenbery, Ashe Converting, and many others. It can also be used on other converting machines including coating and laminating machines, sheeters, unwinds, presses and hot melt coating machines. It can be used to replace web guiding system from Fife, Erhard+Leimer, BST or built into new installations.

 

More information – https://universalconvertingequipment.com/web-guiding

Reducing roll handling risk and increasing productivity

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Roll handling trolley

Universal Converting Equipment has extended the range of attachments available for their popular roll-handling trolley

Safe roll handling is essential not only for the health and well-being of machine operators, but also for efficient job setup and turnaround, but not all rolls need handling in the same way. To ensure that customers have the right tools for the right rolls Universal Converting Equipment now offer a wide variety of attachments for their electric raise/ lower roll handling trolley.

The most popular roll handling attachment picks up a roll that is standing on end and (after lifting the roll) the operator can rotate the roll to a horizontal position ready for loading onto slitter shafts, or vice-versa for unloading finished rolls from a slitter unwind shaft. This type of roll-handling attachment grips rolls of material by their cores, the additionally available attachments hold and lift rolls via a range of different means, including cradles, v-beds (trays) and twin-arm systems.

Universal now offer a range of handling attachments for their roll-handling trolleys, including lifting platforms, crate forks and pallet forks.

With the Universal Converting Equipment roll handling trolley and the correct attachment, material handling is not only very safe but also a lot more efficient.

More about our roll handling trolley…

Minimised energy usage – ideas for efficient winding

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Actively reducing energy usage

Universal Converting Equipment are actively reducing energy usage

The need to reduce energy consumption in industrial processes is well established and often discussed and the motivation is strong; being both ecological and financial. Universal Converting Equipment have introduced a package of energy consumption reducing features into their range of Slitting and winding machinery.

Technical Director Dave Ward explains.
“We design our machinery to be a frugal as possible with energy and have identified significant areas where energy savings can be made; in some cases functionality and performance has been increased as a positive side effect. One of the ways we achieve this saving is by using the latest high efficiency (Efficiency 1) AC motors, with the most up to date AC Vector Drives. Commonly we design in regenerative motors rather than more traditional pneumatic brakes so rather than braking energy being lost (as heat) it is turned into electricity and used by other systems within the machine. In some applications the brake energy is enough to reduce power consumption of the machine by 40% or more. Our machines intelligently turn off unused systems (how often do you walk past machines with hydraulic packs (sometimes on guiders) that are running whether the machine is in use or not) and avoids fan systems that run even when not required. Wherever possible we have engineered hydraulic systems out of our equipment. Even our touch screens are set to go into power save mode when not used for a period.“

All considered the complete range of energy saving steps Universal Converting Equipment have taken will translate into lower energy bills for their customers, and a lower impact on the environment.