CHICAGO — Fast Heat Inc. has entered a new era in its manufacturing of electric heating elements, hot-runner systems and process temperature controllers.
The firm introduced eight products at NPE 1997, held June 16-20 in Chicago. New products include:
A Micro Point hot-runner bushing with pitches as small as three-fourths of an inch.
A Conductor-series modular, two-zone controller that costs $400 per zone and serves as an alternative to controllers with one, five, nine or 12 zones.
A Conductor EF 15-amp module compatible with mainframes, which features automatic ground-fault detection and bake out and costs $300 per zone.
An integral heating element inside a swaged sleeve.
A Digi-Mold ID accessory to store setup parameters on a digital chip for the Symphony 200 control system and mold hot-half setups.
Fast Heat employs more than 175 and occupies 90,000 square feet at its main facility in Elmhurst, Ill. The company has other operations in St. Jean Bonnefonds, France, and Eastbourne, England, and has a sales office in Singapore.
In other Fast Heat news, Tim Stojka, chief executive officer, in February was named chairman of the Washington-based Society of the Plastics Industry Inc.'s international trade advisory committee for a three-year term. He also is a member of the NPE organizing committee and a board member of the SPI Midwest Region.
Stojka also is in charge of Commerx Inc., the Chicago-based operator of the Plastics Network web site at http://www.plastics net.com for sourcing materials, discussing polymer-related problems and ordering products.