U.S. molder/moldmaker banks on tandem tooling.* Erwin Quarder Inc. in Grand Rapids Grand Rapids, city (1990 pop. 189,126), seat of Kent co., SW central Mich., on the Grand River; inc. 1850. The second largest city in the state, it is a distribution, wholesale, and industrial center for an area that yields fruit, dairy products, farm produce, , Mich., a moldmaker and injection molder mold·er v. mold·ered, mold·er·ing, mold·ers v.intr. To crumble to dust; disintegrate. v.tr. To cause to crumble. See Synonyms at decay. of automotive and medical parts, thinks it has found the next big thing in tooling. The eight-year-old company is among the first in the U.S. to use and to produce a new stack-mold concept that can lower part costs and add flexibility by operating each parting line separately and alternately. The TandemMould concept was developed in Germany four years ago and marketed since then by T/Mould of Bad Salzuflen, which holds the patent rights. Quarder started using tandem tools after seeing T/Mould land more than 50 applications in Europe. Quarder started in 1998 as the U.S. branch of Erwin Quarder Gruppe in Espelkamp, Germany. The Grand Rapids plant began with four employees and grew to 80 workers and 20 injection presses from 66 to 330 tons. It provides services in tool and part design, process development, moldmaking, molding, and assembly. The U.S. operation generated $8.5 million last year. Quarder is licensed by T/Mould to build tooling with two capabilities that a traditional stack mold mold, name for certain multicellular organisms of the various classes of the kingdom Fungi, characteristically having bodies composed of a cottony mycelium. The colors of molds are caused by the spores, which are borne on the mycelium. cannot touch, says Wilhelm Kliewer, Quarder's product manager for technical sales of tandem technologies. "The shot-size requirement from one parting line to the other with TandemMould can differ as much as 40%, allowing molding of parts with different injection and cooling profiles. This is not possible with a conventional stack tool. TandemMould also allows a molder to completely close off one parting line and run the press and tool in a single-face mode," says Kliewer. The key to TandemMould is a locking system that opens and closes the two mold faces in alternating sequence. Components mounted on the moving, center, and stationary Stationary can mean:
"Since one parting line is open while the other remains closed, the daylight requirements are the same as a standalone stand·a·lone adj. Self-contained and usually independently operating: a standalone computer terminal. mold," explains Kliewer. "Also, alternating the shot to each mold means the screw does not need to be larger for this stack-mold approach." A hot or cold runner can be used with the system. A tandem mold costs about 10% more than two stand-alone tools, but production savings can be realized in as little as six months, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Kliewer. He says tandem tooling can cut floor-space requirements by 60% and overall costs by 40%. The system has been used on presses of 20 to 2300 tons. The largest tandem mold Quarder has built in the U.S. has 4 + 4 cavities, while its German parent has used can 8 + 8 cavity cavity /cav·i·ty/ (kav´i-te) 1. a hollow place or space, or a potential space, within the body or one of its organs. 2. in dentistry, the lesion produced by caries. tandem mold. Saves time and space One successful application of the technology by Quarder was a housing that holds the electronics for car-seat heating. Quarder took over two stand-alone four-cavity tools designed with hot runners A hot runner is an injection mold component containing a series of channels that distributes molten plastic within a mold to increase molding productivity through reduced waste, as the runners arent wasted each cycle by being ejected, as the plasic stays molten and gets used on the and direct gating and converted them to a tandem mold using the same nozzle An orifice in an inkjet print head through which ink is sprayed onto the paper. Print heads with six thousand or more nozzles are common in today's printers. Nozzle tips. "The customer wanted lower piece cost--that is why we converted the tools," says Kliewer. Quarder changed the manifold manifold In mathematics, a topological space (see topology) with a family of local coordinate systems related to each other by certain classes of coordinate transformations. Manifolds occur in algebraic geometry, differential equations, and classical dynamics. of the tool so that it had an opening for melt to pass into either mold face. "We produced both the 58-gram housing and the 39-gram cover in the same machine. You couldn't do that with a traditional stack mold," says Kliewer. Each mold has a cycle time between 32 and 34 sec, but overall cycle time is reduced since the cooling time (Law) such a lapse of time as ought, taking all the circumstances of the case in view, to produce a subsiding of passion previously provoked. - Wharton. See also: Cooling of one mold face overlaps the injection phase in the other face. The machine opens one mold face after the end of holding pressure in the other face. That allows increased cooling time to improve part quality without a cycle-time penalty. "To make the parts with two conventional molds would take two machines running for two weeks, but with TandemMould we accomplished the same production goals in one week on one machine," says Kliewer. T/Mould plans to establish a U.S. office soon. To open the door even wider for this technology, Quarder will offer classes at a local Michigan university to teach the principles of TandemMould. Quarder will also hold "technology days" at its facility and build demonstration tools. |
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