Innovations in Molding, Machine Texturing, Micro-Fluidics and More at Canon Virginia Booth
Multi-Mold System shuttles molds in and out to run two separate tools in one press simultaneously.
Canon Virginia Inc., located in Booth W223, has brought the wow factor to NPE2018 this week, showcasing not only its custom mold-manufacturing capabilities and signature vision systems, but introducing a new, sleek multi-mold system, new machine texturing technology and a new focus on medical contract manufacturing.
Takashi Arai, vice president, Advanced Manufacturing Technology Group at Canon, emphasizes the company’s continual pursuit of innovation to provide customers with new and better ways to achieve efficiency in cycle time, mold changeovers and overall productivity.
An example is the new Multi-Mold System, which runs two separate molds in one press simultaneously. NPE attendees can see the system in action as it will be running in a customized Sumitomo (SHI) Demag press in Canon’s booth. This is how it works: Plastic material is injected into the first mold. The system then moves the first mold outside the machine chamber for cooling and moves the second mold in place for processing. Then the first mold returns in the machine and ejects its parts, while the second mold moves outside of the machine for part cooling. In addition, the retrieval robot can handle two types of parts with different shapes in cooperation with the system.
This “mold shuttling” process repeats for the next cycle and so on. According to Arai, this system helps transform idle cooling time into productive time by shuttling a second mold into production. The user can program changing conditions like pressure, temperature, injection speed and clamp force as specified for each mold and the system controls the parameters automatically as the mold shuttles back and forth. The proprietary process accomplishes dual, multi-product molding by the same machine without error or loss of time, achieving reductions in cost, time and waste.
Canon entered the medical contract manufacturing arena last year and is giving medical customers a taste of its custom manufacturing capabilities, including precision moldmaking for the medical industry. Attendees can see, up close, as another Sumitomo press demonstrates injection molding of a microfluidic product.
As if that were not enough, Canon is also spotlighting proprietary technology with the introduction of machine texturing for molds that can replace traditional chemical processes. Arai says that with some proprietary vision technology, Canon machine texturing can reduce lead times compared to chemical processes, plus improve mold life and reduce downtime and costs. “This next-generation technology creates product textures that the human eye perceives not as flat surfaces, but as patterns with tactical differentiations based on human sensory response. It creates very precise patterns with delicate features unlike chemical processes that can have wide deviations in texturing,” he says.
Finally, Canon has a lot of machine-vision systems on display, including 3D vision. Watch as the “eye” utilizes cutting-edge optics, image recognition and data processing to achieve three-dimensional recognition of production parts that are randomly piled in a bin and then snaps multiple images to quickly create a 3D image of the part.
Molds are running parts to demonstrate Canon’s mold-manufacturing capabilities, with parts automatically assembled into a box using robotic arms and handed out to attendees to take home.
Related Content
In the Zone: Bottles
The Bottle Zone is the place to explore cutting-edge bottle and container technologies.
Read MoreClock's Ticking: Register Now for NPE2024
Sign up to attend North America’s leading trade show for plastics.
Read MoreInside the Florida Recycler Gearing Up to Take on Scrap at NPE2024
Hundreds of tons of demonstration products will be created at NPE2024 next spring. Commercial Plastics Recycling strives to recycle all of it.
Read MoreSix Years in the Waiting, PLASTICS Igniting a ‘Spark’ at NPE
New features of NPE2024 aim to “bring the whole plastics ecosystem together to innovate, collaborate and share findings.”
Read MoreRead Next
Understanding Melting in Single-Screw Extruders
You can better visualize the melting process by “flipping” the observation point so that the barrel appears to be turning clockwise around a stationary screw.
Read MorePeople 4.0 – How to Get Buy-In from Your Staff for Industry 4.0 Systems
Implementing a production monitoring system as the foundation of a ‘smart factory’ is about integrating people with new technology as much as it is about integrating machines and computers. Here are tips from a company that has gone through the process.
Read MoreAdvanced Recycling: Beyond Pyrolysis
Consumer-product brand owners increasingly see advanced chemical recycling as a necessary complement to mechanical recycling if they are to meet ambitious goals for a circular economy in the next decade. Dozens of technology providers are developing new technologies to overcome the limitations of existing pyrolysis methods and to commercialize various alternative approaches to chemical recycling of plastics.
Read More