Plastics News Daily Report - May 8, 2018 - 42

Roctool SA photo

42 ‹ PLASTICS NEWS DAILY REPORT ‹ May 8, 2018

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Roctool shows induction as key
to advanced surface effects
By David Vink
Plastics News Correspondent

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Induction-heated mold will be on display at the Roctool booth at
NPE2018.

Passion for
expertise

Intrinsic features of variotherm
highly dynamic injection molding
technologies include visible weld
line elimination, precise mold surface replication, combined highgloss and matte surfaces, different
colors and even holograms.
These features arise due to molding against a relative hot mold surface so that melt surface freezing
is delayed until the plastic material has already fully replicated the
mold surface. Close contour molds
enable rapid heating and cooling
(RHC) benefits to be extended beyond relatively flat surfaces into
highly complex three dimensional
surfaces.
French induction heating technology development company Roctool SA in Le Bourget du Lac has
become a significant player in RHC
area. It initially specialized in fast
cycle time composites production,
then extended induction-based
RHC into thermoplastic injection
molding, too. It illustrates this with
three live "HD Plastics" demonstrations at NPE2018.
On its own booth, Roctool
demonstrates Heat & Cool technology by running a 160-ton clamping
force KraussMaffei injection press
with a Roctool 50 kW induction
power generator, a new RT21 interface and a R30 cooling unit. The
equipment molds a 3D sphere in a
Sabic thermoplastic, showing how
Heat & Cool technology can be applied to complex and highly countered surfaces, with 97.2 percent
mold surface replication precision.
Contract manufacturer Flextronics is involved in the demonstration, as are mold components
producer Ermanno Balzi SpA in
Mazzano, Italy (W4783), German
hot runner system supplier Incoe
(S19023, W4463) and Italian ancillary equipment producer Moretto
SpA (S17095, W8545). Flextronics
has been using Roctool technology since 2011 and took a minority
14.76 percent share in Roctool in
September 2015, along with 13.62
percent voting rights. It uses Roctool technology for compression
molded Nespresso Pixie coffee
machine personalized side panels
in laser-textured tools, as shown
by Roctool at K 2016.

BOOTH S17013
ROCTOOL SA
Also at NPE, KraussMaffei
(Booth W403) will give a live
demonstration of dynamic mold
heating (DMH) technology, which
involves Roctool's latest DZ100kW
(Dual Zone) induction generator.
The generator supports a Roctool 3iTech induction system on
a 16-cavity mold, which produces
combined matte and gloss surface
finishes from a laser-textured mold.
Roctool says the 20-seconds cycle time is a new record for Heat &
Cool technology. Starting induction
heating before the mold closes contributes to the fast cycle time.
3iTech stands for Integrated Internal Induction Technology, in
which induction heating is applied
to both mold sides within the mold,
as opposed to the simpler but less
effective cage system.
Roctool's Heat & Cool technology is also used in a demonstration
on the booth of injection molding
machinery producer Milacron
(W2703) in a 825-gram 2.75-mmthick automotive SUV interior
door panel map pocket part, produced with a single-cavity mold
in a "core-back/reverse coining"
version of the MuCell supercritical
fluid microcellular physical foam
molding process from Trexel Corp.
(W551).
The demonstration, on a Milacron Maxima Performance press,
shows Roctool's largest 300 kW
single zone induction generator in
action.
Although MuCell itself produces
less visible surface swirl effects
than conventional structural foam
molding processes, combining
MuCell with Roctool's Heat & Cool
technology results in a through-colored Class A surface direct from
the mold, but without any fibers or
foam swirl effects showing through
to the resin-rich surface.
Although not demonstrated live
at NPE2018, Roctool's latest technology is Induction Dual Heating
(IDH), combining latest LIT Light
Induction Tooling for composites with induction heating of
injection molds for overmolding
plastic features onto composite
structures.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Plastics News Daily Report - May 8, 2018