Left & Right Door Panels from One Machine, One Mold, Twin Robots
Twin robot arms tend a stack-type mold.
Arkal Automotive GmbH in Crock, Germany, is producing two door panels in a single shot with a multi-daylight mold and two linear robots on a shared Z-axis. The two door panels of 30% glass-filled PP are molded on a 1600-ton MX hydromechanical two-platen machine from KraussMaffei (U.S. office in Florence, Ky.) with the aid of two KraussMaffei LRX robots in a “TwinZ” arrangement (also highlighted at the K 2016 fair in Dusseldorf last month). This is the first time KM has implemented twin robots that are programmed and controlled via the machine’s MC6 controller. The robots are programmed via the shared program editor, using KM’s new “multiple kinematics” software that can control up to 24 axes—such as four robots with three axes each. Arkal currently produces around 3600 door trim panels a week in three shifts, alternating between left-right front doors and back doors.
Arkal Automotive is based in Israel and has plants in Auburn, Ala., and London, Ont., as well as a sales office in Farmington Hills, Mich.
Related Content
-
All-rPET Bottles with Glued-in Handles Save Material
At K 2022, KHS is showing a 2.3 L PET bottle with glued-in handle that offers 10% material savings and other advantages over clip-in handles. Bottle and handle are both 100% rPET.
-
Mold Opaque White PET Bottles – Without Pigment
Trexel and Husky are cooperating on molding recyclable opaque white preforms for PET bottles, which provide a light barrier using foam instead of pigment.
-
Breaking the Barrier: An Emerging Force in 9-Layer Film Packaging
Hamilton Plastics taps into its 30-plus years of know-how in high-barrier films by bringing novel, custom-engineered, nine-layer structures resulting from the investment in two new lines.