NPE2018 is a big trade show. Milacron Holdings Corp. is taking that literally.
Milacron has secured buyers for both the largest injection press at this NPE — the Cincinnati, with 2,250 tons of clamping force — and the largest Roboshot ever built, a 498-tonner that has an option to boost the all-electric press up to 550 tons.
"We wanted to go big this year at the show," said Mike Sansoucy, vice president of sales for injection molding in the Americas. Sansoucy said Milacron excels in large-tonnage presses, regularly building machines in the 1,000-ton range.
The 2,250-tonner is molding a dashboard for a large side-by-side all-terrain vehicle. The buyer, custom molder Innovative Injection Technologies Inc., known as i2Tech, in West Des Moines, Iowa, will mold a 10.5-pound dashboard for Arctic Cat's new Wildcat XX two-passenger utility vehicle that boasts an off-road-racing suspension.
Milacron is aiming the large, two-platen Cincinnati — with a higher performance and a shorter footprint — at large-part markets like automotive and appliance. Servo-motor Fanuc power packs offer improved reliability, expanded multicomponent capability, higher maximum mold weights, faster clamping speeds and added tonnage sizes, the company said.
MI Intégration, a Canadian automotive molder in Sherbrooke, Quebec, bought the 495-ton Roboshot. Two officials of MI Intégration attended Milacron's NPE news conference on May 7: Jocelyn Morin, supply manager, and Frédéric Parent, process specialist.
Morin said the company will use the Roboshot to mold an automotive gap seal for car doors. The press will be going to its molding operation in Sherbrooke, called Plastech, he said.
MI Intégration makes the gap seal by multicomponent injection, overmolding flexible TPV over a polypropylene base. The injection molding process using thermoplastic elastomers is displacing traditional extruded rubber for the seals.
Morin said the company is looking at other materials.
MI Integration has purchased one of Milacron's E-Multi injection units to do the two-component molding. The mold spins to meet both injection unit and makes the seals — for both the right side and left side — in the same shot.
Milacron is displaying lots of technology at its 18,700-square-foot booth, including Milacron injection and extrusion machines, Mold-Masters hot runners and control systems, DME mold components, Uniloy blow molding machines, Kortec coinjection technology and Milacron's version of Industry 4.0, called M-Powered.