Transform your molding capabilities with the Canon Shuttle Mold System

What if new technology upended some of the hard and fast rules of injection molding? Canon Virginia, Inc. is doing just that.

The company is taking an unconventional approach with its patented Shuttle Mold System. Molders for decades have searched for ways to reduce cycle time and cut the time spent cooling a mold after a part is run, in an unending effort to increase production.

Instead, Canon’s Shuttle Mold System embraces longer cooling and cycle times to make more parts. Instead of running only one mold at a time on a conventional press, the system doubles that number by using two molds that can each make unique parts. By doubling down on the number of molds used, production also can double without the added cost of buying a second machine. Part cost is potentially cut by half, even as cycle times can remain consistent.

Canon’s facility first developed the transformative technology in 2014 and began using it to make inkjet printer parts. The company had targeted a 50 percent part-cost reduction by working on changes to its process, said Wayne Daniel, Canon Virginia’s director of business development.

The company had done all it could to reduce time spent on mold cooling, which accounts for two-thirds of cycle time for a part and needed other answers. “The goal was to keep the machine running,” Daniel said. “If you can’t reduce cycle time anymore, how can you utilize the cooling time to do something else?”

The solution, in Daniel’s words, is the Canon Shuttle Mold System. The system uses roller staging stations and motors to shuttle the molds in and out of the press.

Basically, when Mold A finishes making parts in the press, the clamps are released and the motor system moves the tool to the cart on the non- operator side of the machine, where the tool is cooled. Simultaneously, Mold B is shuttled into the press and clamped, where parts are made while Mold A is cooled. When Mold B’s cycle is completed, it is shuttled back to its initial cart, and Mold A is again rotated to the platen area, where it begins the cycle anew.

The Shuttle Mold System cuts changeover time to only three seconds, the time it takes for the molds to shift position and for clamps and location pins to be set. With changeover times for some traditional parts taking as long as an hour or requiring multiple changeovers a day, the Shuttle Mold System is quick and efficient – and a radical change.

In 2018, the company introduced the Shuttle Mold System at NPE, where it turned heads, leading the company to begin offering it to outside machine manufacturers selling to molders globally.

At K Show in Germany the following year, Canon showcased the system’s ability to make an S-shaped and I-shaped pipe for plumbing applications from four parts, running concurrently on one molding machine, assembled and overmolded using two different tools. The process is not industry- specific, Daniel said, and works best with parts that require a cycle time longer than 30 seconds. Automotive and construction parts are two potential applications, because of the need for thicker walls and longer cycles.

The process currently requires the use of commodity thermoplastics, but the company is working on future development in more customized, engineering-grade resins. Independently controlled processes with different shot sizes can be used with each mold.

Machine size should be between 230 and 680 tons but use in larger tonnage machines is also being developed. The mold system can either be sold with a new machine as a package unit or retrofitted onto existing equipment.

The system can also cut changeover time dramatically for one mold, Daniel said. The shuttle portion can be turned off, and the system can then offer quick changeovers in as little as three seconds by using the shuttle table.

Canon’s solution ultimately changes conventional thinking about the laborious attempts to reduce cycle times by cutting the seconds it takes to cool a mold. “From a parts processing point of view, everyone thinks short cycle times are better,” Daniel said. “Maybe a short cycle time isn’t better. With this system, what if you increased cycle time and increased productivity to 200%.”

That future is now for Canon, and it is this: Embrace longer cycle times and see vastly improved results. Learn more at cvi.canon.com/shuttlemold.

Join Wayne Daniel as he discusses how injection molders can increase production flexibility. To learn more about this session, click here.