Electroform Inc. is offering turntables for multi-shot molds.
Features of the turntable include hand pendant and standard knock-out patterns of the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. Euromap and custom patterns also are available.
Other options include 120-degree position, additional water circuits, electrical and hydraulic circuits, a guided support system. Electroform can integrate the rotating mold with the machine control.
Wade Clark, Electroform's president and CEO, explained how the Machesney Park, Ill., company developed the turntable.
“I had spent the previous several years developing in-mold assembly, including multiple ways to assemble with rotating stack molds. The project came to a point where I'd looked at every possible option for assembling plastic parts in or with rotating molds and index plates,” he said.
Electroform began looking for another challenge. “We reached out to customers looking for something to develop. It came to our attention that there were failures with some of the existing turntables on the market due to the weight loads required,” Clark said. “Load-bearing requirements for today's larger molds that require multiple ejection systems and actions are much greater. The molds can get heavier with some of the more-complicated part designs.”
Around that time, Electroform got an order for a multi-shot tool that was better suited for a rotary table than an index plate. Electroform offered to build a turntable and the mold to a customer, using that customer's input to improve the system.
Clark said Electroform also recognized he need for additional support of the platen, so a patent-pending support was developed for both the table and the platen. The system will work on both tie-bar and tiebar-less machines, he said.
Tel. 815-633-1113, fax 815-633-3710.
