News

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.

Record sales month for hot melt adhesive coating module for printing presses

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Universal Converting Equipment sold six HMCS 420’s during November 2011, a modular device that enables hot melt adhesive coating capability to be added to print presses and other web fed processes.

Touch screen HMI

The Universal HMCS 420 allows printers to coat hot melt adhesive in-line on their print presses, enabling them to service customers requiring adhesive coating without incurring the costs associated with installation of a dedicated line. The coating systems are designed to give the same precision of coating normally only achieved on dedicated hot melt coating lines.

The hot melt adhesive can be applied either as a continuous coating, as striped coating or patch coating in registration with the print design. A complete range of hot melt adhesives can be applied including pressure sensitive, heat seal, dry peel and UV curing. Applying adhesive on a press or finishing line allows special products to be manufactured which cannot be produced on standard label stock. End uses have included liner-less labels, security labels, promotional labels and fold out labels. Several high profile labelling companies were among the recent orders and interest in this innovative product continues to grow.

“The secret to high quality coating is precision positioning of the coating die. Safety regulations restrict access to the coating system when the machine is running. As a result, we have designed a motorised adjusting system so the key settings can be adjusted via the touch screen display. These positions form part of the product recipe and can be recalled at a later date when the product is run again. In essence, we’ve taken the ‘black art’ out of in-line coating while making the process both accurate and flexible.” Explains Managing Director Alan Jones.

The Universal HMCS coating system is available in a number of standard widths. It can also be customised to suit special applications.

Find out more about the HMCS 420…

MACtac U.K. Ltd improve both quality and customer service by installing the latest highly automated X9 Slitter Rewinder from Ipswich based Universal Converting Equipment.

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Universal Converting Equipment have sold a highly automated duplex centre wind Slitter to Bemis group company, MACtac U.K. Ltd for use at their Northampton facility.

MACtac U.K. have a reputation for fast delivery of quality, label product, maintaining this requires periodic investment in emerging technologies.

“When the decision to invest in a new slitter rewinder was taken, our principle considerations were short run productivity and the capability to process label stock and some open adhesive substrates. The Universal X9 with its auto-knife setting, laser core-alignment, auto-roll offloading and automatic tension control (along with the Universal’s experience in handling label stock) made Universal’s X9 a clear contender in our procurement process. The more aspects of the converting process that we can automate, the better service and quality we can offer our customers,” says Rachel Barton of MACtac U.K.

“Working with our sister company Universal Adhesive Systems Limited has given us considerable experience in handling label stock and substrates with open adhesives. We applied our experience to ensure issues surrounding knife cleaning, web-path geometry and roller covering performance were minimised. Also the X9 features closed loop rewind tension (load cells) control as standard, this always gives superior results compares to equipment with open loop control.” says Universal Converting Equipment Technical Director Dave Ward.

The transport that delivered the new Universal X9 also removed the redundant slitter, it was therefore essential that the new slitter was commissioned immediately and without problems. This was achieved and throughout the the commissioning phase not a single scrap roll was produced.

Lithium-ion and solar cell manufacturers increasingly embracing web processes

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Lithium Ion and Solar Cell web manufactureUniversal Converting Equipment are exploiting their substantial knowledge in web-based manufacturing processes to facilitate customers’ development in emerging energy technologies.

Lithium Ion and Solar Cell manufacture are two fields enjoying exponential expansion and with such rapid expansion comes a greatly increased need for innovative manufacture processes. Universal’s extensive experience in developing new manufacture processes places the company in an increasingly strengthened position when it comes to assisting Lithium Ion and Solar Cell manufacturers in refining and improving product lines.

“Lithium Ion and Solar Cell technologies have proven themselves and are widely accepted by both manufactures and end-consumers as being ‘the way forward’. We specialise in integrating technologies such as web handling, tension control and coating, with other systems to provide a complete production cell offering an efficient and cost effective solution to the processes required to manufacture these emerging products. One of the challenges is reducing the manufacturing cost of these products to increase their acceptability.” says Managing Director Alan Jones.

Web guider goes touch screen

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Web guiding touchscreenUniversal’s popular retro-fit edge, line and broken line guider the ‘Converter Guide 4’ (which has strengthened the company’s reputation for increasing machine efficiency through reducing waste and simplifying setup) is now fitted with a touch screen human interface as standard.

“When we spoke to customers about web guiding systems in general they told us that needlessly complex and overly comprehensive user interfaces (from some third-party suppliers) often led to stoppages and excess waste. In response to this feedback we developed a touch screen system that prioritises the important functions, without hiding more infrequently used controls behind complex menu systems. Customers have responded extremely well to this development.” says Managing Director Alan Jones.

“In addition to having a very simple two-step setup process, the ‘Converter Guide 4’ has been designed to be simple enough for any customer with an in-house engineer to install themselves. This machine can make huge improvements to any machine anywhere’. says Technical Director Dave Ward.