Conair adds chillers, ‘line-proofs' resin distribution

Cranberry Township, Pa.-based Conair Group has a new line of chillers that it's billing as Green Cool technology as well as a new radio-frequency identification (RFID) system that it says simplifies and error-proofs resin distribution.

The auxiliary equipment producer says the chillers in the new Eco-brand line can operate in conditions from -20° to 125° F, which allows them to be installed outdoors to provide chilled water indoors for plastics processing machines.

Conair serves a variety of markets, including packaging, medical, transportation and construction, with more than 450 products.

The Eco line has six models of chillers with cooling capacities from 40 to 120 tons. All the models feature direct-drive hermetically sealed scroll compressors, which Conair officials say are reliable, low maintenance and efficient.

Dual refrigeration circuits and multiple compressors provide built-in redundancy for the smaller units, while the larger ones (80-120 tons) also incorporate independent process fluid circuits.

The Eco chillers have a modular design so the units can be connected to a single control interface, providing centralized control of up to 12 temperature-control circuits. For example, a series of 60-ton units could deliver up to 720 tons of cooling.

The Eco chillers are heat-transfer products with several energy-saving features, according to Jim Fisher, general manager of heat transfer.

"Among other energy-saving features, the new central chiller line offers instantaneous, continuous calculations performed to deliver increased efficiency under partial load, with automatic refrigeration pressure control," Fisher said in a news release. "Variable-speed fan motors and dynamically controlled valves also ensure efficient operation at low noise levels and deliver increased temperature stability under varying load and condenser inlet temperatures. We call this Green Cool technology."

The Eco chillers come with Conair's "uptime guarantee," the release also says.

As for the new RFID technology, another Conair release says it uniquely improves resin distribution by translating source and destination connections from the controls into operator instructions guided by color-changing LEDs on the resin selection tabletop.

The "line-proofing" system works with Conair's recently introduced SmartFLX-brand conveying control and an RFID-capable table that acts as the resin selection system (RSS).

All resin sources, along with their resin ports and unique RFID antenna addresses, are tracked in a material destination database in the SmartFLX control.

Conair says the light-guided material selection was designed to prevent operator errors. When an operator initiates a material change using the RSS table, the SmartFLX control consults a database of materials, sources and destinations to identify one or more RSS ports linked to the correct resin source as well as one or more flex tubes linked to the desired destination.

As the correct connections are displayed on the touchscreen, the control translates them into light-guided instructions using LEDs embedded in the surface of the RSS table. The correct destination is shown by a flashing yellow LED, which indicates that it should be unplugged from its current position and moved to a new RSS source identified by a flashing blue LED.

To make the connection, the operator moves the flex tube end to the indicated RSS port, then connects the tube into the port, aligning the tube's RFID-equipped handle with the tabletop slot next to the port. Inserting the tube handle into this slot aligns its RFID chip with the port's RFID antenna, enabling the SmartFLX control to "proof the connection," the release says.

The tabletop LED then flashes green to indicate a good connection, and the SmartFLX control unlocks the destination receiver and initiates the conveying cycle.

The new RFID line proofing system also has a clean cycle process for non-purged lines to eliminate resin contamination risk. The process combines a filtered purge-air port on the RSS table with color-coded LED indicators that guide operators through the correct purging sequence.

The process is managed by the SmartFLX control, which knows the purge status of each source and automatically adds the cleaning step whenever resin is conveyed from a non-purged source.

The new RFID technology and line of chillers are among more than 450 Conair products. The company also supplies resin drying systems, blenders, feeders and material-conveying systems, temperature-control equipment and granulators.

For extruders, Conair also offers line-control systems, film and sheet scrap-reclaim systems and downstream equipment for pipe and profile manufacturers.