Orlando, Fla. — AEC, a division of ACS Group, introduced new equipment during NPE2024 to help its customers become more user-friendly, more efficient and save energy.
The AD Series desiccant wheel dryers are more efficient dehumidifying dryers to serve the plastics industry. The dryers come in three configurations; options can come cart mounted or be on the base of a machine. One variation has integrated convey and the final type of dryer has the largest throughput of 50-2,500 pounds per house.
"The bottom line is we have configurations that will meet whatever the need is," said Ken Forbes, senior product manager of ACS.
Another feature on ACS' dryers is that they have resin protection such as a smart mode that tracks process air temperature and can alert an operator that too much ventilation is happening. The airflow is able to be adjusted, and there is material production management to reduce the temperature once it sensors the resin is dry enough.
"Resin is a very expensive component of the whole plastics processing process," Forbes said. "They're really protection measures, because we knew our customers don't want to overdry the resin and be unable to use it."
GPL packaged chillers and LHE central chillers are redesigned to meet lower global warming potential requirements to reduce harmful emissions by using environmentally friendly refrigerant. LHE central chillers are available in 20- to 60-ton units and are expandable up to 600-ton cooling capacity, which can save up to 60 percent in energy costs.
The chillers are smaller than past products by ACS and are brought down by having a new C-shaped condenser. The whole frame is a new design to meet customers' needs and be easier to service. The 454 B products are available and ready to ship.
There is an addition of a color touchscreen to be more user-friendly and OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) communication. OPC UA has become a corporate mandate for some companies.
The new TS-5 controls for temperature controls units can provide maintenance features and intelligent capabilities. It will access pressure adaptive technology and be controlled through a 5-inch color touchscreen. The controller will include USB data logging standard Ethernet and OPC UA.
"Easy for the customer to do the setting, easy to do data trends and kind of look at different things going on with the products," said Bill Bruhn, senior product manager for ACS. "This has the capability, and so [there are] better communications with other machines and the protocols."
ACS also has a digital solutions platform that currently connects all the intelligent equipment; the MiVue shows customers all the metrics and data from their machines.
"We pull all the metrics continuously from each device, and we push it to the cloud via cell network," he said. "There's no barrier for a customer when they buy a piece of equipment."
Once MiVue is connected, it immediately starts pushing data and will atomically connect units. There are multiple dashboards within MiVue, allowing for specific metrics within a machine or being able to see overview of more data.