Larger sizes are on the way for new families of blow molders.

Additional models are planned to complement the small injection stretch-blow and extrusion blow molding machines announced at NPE '94 last June by Jomar Corp., Pleasantville, N.J. Those machines were both firsts for Jomar, which had been known exclusively for injection-blow machines (see PT, May '94, pp. 65, 68).

Jomar's ISB II machine for oriented-PET bottles is just now in the final stages of beta testing. The first production model (beefed up from the prototype shown at NPE) has a 33-ton clamp. A 50-ton model is already on the drawing board. Meanwhile, the Ebm 1.5 continuous-extrusion machine with 4-ton clamp soon will have a companion model with 14-15 ton clamp. In addition, there's a new barrel-change feature for Jomar's standard injection-blow machines.

QUICK-CHANGE PET MACHINE

Jomar has built four beta-test models of its ISB II machine. It can produce six 120-ml bottles in 12.5 sec. The bottles weigh 13 g and measure 6 in. long x 2.5 in. diam. The upcoming 50-ton machine will mold six bottles of about 20 fl oz that measure 8 in. long x 3.5 in. diam. It could also mold eight 4-oz bottles. Jomar sr. v.p. Walter Priest says it will be comparable in capacity to an Aoki model 250 from Japan.

However, the ISB II is unlike any other PET stretch-blow machine on the market. It has only two stations - one for injection and one for stretching, blowing, and ejecting finished bottles. A rotary indexing mechanism transports the parisons from one station to the other. The three-piece stretch-blow tooling (patent pending) has a separate bottom piece that rotates on a hinge-like mechanism to allow bottles to drop out the bottom of the stretch-blow station.

Other features include the cam-operated rotary indexer, which combines high speed with precision - the latter being the key to prolonged tool life, notes Priest. The machine also has a special hydraulic booster that accepts shop compressed air at 125 psi and raises it to 500 psi max. blowing pressure. Priest says this approach is much less expensive than incorporating a high-pressure air compressor.

The ISB II is designed for quick tooling changeover - 2 hr max. for both injection and blowing tools. Undoing four bolts and two hoses allows the tool to slide away; an alignment key ensures precise location of the new tool.

The machine also has an Allen-Bradley 503 controller with color terminal, Kona hot-runner manifold, Novatec dryer, and HPM injection unit with high-torque motor and Double Wave PET screw specially designed for this machine. Proportional hydraulics permit staging the speed of core-rod extraction after preform injection. Slow initial extraction followed by acceleration prevents distorting the still-soft pre-forms before the vacuum is broken at the neck.

Price of the 33-ton ISB II will be $300,000-325,000.

ENERGY-SAVING EXTRUSION BLOW

The Ebm 1.5 continuous-extrusion machine is built by Jomar's year-old Italian operation. Eight units of this commercially available model have been built so far. Jomar says it was urged to enter the extrusion-blow field by injection-blow customers because of its reputation for reliable, efficient design.

This 4-ton model can produce three containers of up to 0.5 liters, two containers up to 1 liter, or one 1.5-liter container. A larger model with 14-15 ton clamp should be ready by midyear. It will make containers as big as 5 liters in a single cavity. View striping and three-layer coextrusion (for burying regrind or post-consumer scrap) will be offered on this machine, which will be shown at K '95 in Dusseldorf, Germany, this October.

The current model has a single swing-arm clamp with Bosch proportional hydraulics, linear position transducers, and 1.4-sec dry-cycle time. In one recent demonstration run, the machine molded two 12-oz, 18-g HDPE bottles in 8 sec.

It comes with either Jomar or Rock Valley heads and d-c driven, 50- or 60-mm extruders capable of up to 120 lb/hr of PVC or PP and 154 lb/hr of HDPE. A Moog 64-point parison programmer is standard. Also standard is closed-loop hydraulic control of the mold carriage, which permits faster movement and easier mold setup, according to Gianluca Maini, engineering manager of Jomar Italia. The Siemens Simatic S5/95U controls have a compact LCD operator terminal.

The machine is said to be both quiet and energy efficient. Relief valves depressurize the hydraulic circuits during setup breaks while the accumulator is kept under pressure. This arrangement provides substantial energy savings and allows the machine to be restarted immediately, Jomar says.

The standard configuration provides top and bottom trimming and oriented take-off. The bottle-handling auxiliaries mount directly onto the back plate of the stationary mold half. The machine can also accommodate molds built for other machines. Molds can be changed quickly by undoing four bolts and two hoses.

Standard price is $135,000, which is said to be comparable to or less than similar German or Italian machines.

NEW INJECTION-BLOW FEATURE

Jomar has implemented a design change for its standard line of injection-blow machines that makes it easier to change the injection unit in plants with low overhead space. A removable plate held by eight bolts allows the injection unit to be pulled sideways out of the machine rather than lifted vertically as before.