Baumuller Inc.

This NPE show won’t have a lot of extruders on the floor, either running or static. Instead, look for videos and announcements of new technology. You will also find lots of ingenious peripheral devices to improve output and quality and save resin. Some will do all three, and cost less into the bargain.

Dramatic production demonstrations of cast and blown film set throughput records on the show floor in Dusseldorf.

 NPE 2006 presented a bevy of features to make film, sheet, pipe, and profile extrusion more efficient.

The new factor in extrusion machinery at this NPE is the influx of Asian suppliers.

Baumuller's DST line of gearless, synchronous, permanent-magnet torque motors, first seen on a lab machine at the K 2004 show in Dusseldorf, is now available in larger models with an integral thrust bearing (normally built into the gearbox of standard motors). The German motor builder (U.S. offices in Bloomfield, Conn.) offers gearless motors for shaft heights of 200, 260, and 315 mm.

Silent, space-saving, energy-efficient, and high-torque, a new generation of ring-shaped motors is gaining a foothold in extrusion. A couple of hundred are already in use. Though most machine builders are reacting cautiously, adventurous processors are using them happily.

Gearless extrusion, cryogenic profile calibration, wireless data communications, and automatic start-up of blown film lines are just a few of the new ways to raise efficiency and output that were highlighted at NPE.