Want a Machine with Everything?

You may have heard the one about what the guru told the hot-dog vendor: “Make me one with everything.” That seems to be what a French molder of cosmetics packaging had in mind when it ordered an injection machine for development projects. “We envisioned a single machine that could map all of our requirements,” said Fabrice Baraviglio, president of Groupe Texen, one of the largest global manufacturers of packaging and screw caps for cosmetics and perfume. For the company’s new Texen Lab innovation center, it ordered a 160-metric-ton. CX hybrid press from KraussMaffei in Germany (U.S. office in Florence, Ky.).

 

The machine has two electrically driven injection units for multi-component sandwich molding and hydraulic two-platen clamp that can handle indexing molds. Both injection units are equipped for MuCell physical microcellular foaming, plus interfaces for gas-assist and liquid silicone rubber (LSR) molding. The control unit is programmed for various processes such as in-mold decoration, in-mold coating/painting (KM’s SkinForm, ColorForm, and CoverForm processes), as well as textile back molding (DecoForm). The machine also comes with KM’s Dynamic Mold Heating (DMH) system for rapid heat-cool molding to provide smooth aesthetic surfaces.