PT Blog

When you install guide pins and guide bushings within the ejector housing, it is called a guided ejection system. Guided ejection systems greatly increase the longevity of a mold—but they also increase the cost. So, when are they needed and when are they not?

In order to answer that question, we need to define what benefits a guided ejection system provides. The short answer is that they support, guide and align the ejector plates, which in turn supports, aligns and guides the return pins, ejector pins, sleeves, blades, lifters, and any other connected component.

A brand-new approach to central blending promises to save processors money, speed changeover times, and improve flexibility compared with current machine-mounted and central-blending technologies. Called BlendSave, the technology holds out the promise to impact central blending in the same fashion as central drying influenced that process. It is said to be suitable to processors of all kinds and is particularly beneficial to those that do frequent job changes that require recipe adjustments. Since the system requires less in the way of operator attention to make recipe changes and cleanups, BlendSave is also billed as ideal for processors with clean rooms.
BlendSave technology is available from a somewhat surprising source:

Ampacet, a global masterbatch supplier. It is available by virtue of Ampacet’s 2019 purchase of LIAD Weighing and Control Systems of Israel. Ampacet has set up a new unit called CISystems to market the LIAD products worldwide. “We saw LIAD’s ColorSave series of loss-in-weight feeders and BlendSave central systems, and were tremendously impressed with the ability of these technologies to redefine masterbatch feeding and resin blending,” notes Doug Brownfield, commercial director of CISystems group. “We saw BlendSave as a revolutionary concept that would reshape the future of multiple-ingredient blending for all plastics processors.”

The Gardner Business Index (GBI) for plastics processing —based on monthly surveys of Plastics Technology subscribers—finished September at 52.9, resulting in a third consecutive month of expanding activity. (Values above 50 indicate expansion; values below 50 signal contraction.) The Plastics Processing Index recorded its last full quarter of expansionary activity in the second quarter of 2019. Accelerating expansions in new orders and employment activity coupled with additional expansion in production kept the Index in growth territory through the end of the quarter. Conversely, backlog and export activity both reported accelerating contraction in September.

The GBI’s Custom Processors Index came in at 54.2. One important difference between the overall processing index and the custom processing during the quarter was the unique expansion of backlog activity in the custom sector.

Nova Chemicals is now the lead corporate sponsor for The Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup Initiative (GLPC).

Launched on Aug. 27, 2020, the GLPC aims to combine innovative capture and clean-up technologies to remove plastics from the Great Lakes with messaging to communities and consumers (with an initial focus on Ontario) about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling material waste.

There’s something about companies who get their start with friends gathered around a kitchen table. For industrial 3D printing provider Essentium, this talk was in 2013. 

“We were trying to figure out, ‘Okay, are we going to do this startup thing?’ says Blake Teipel, CEO and co-founder of Essentium. “It was one of those moments where the four of us kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We're going to do this. We're going to try to secure investment. We're going to try to launch a company. We believe we have the ability to add value to the marketplace.’”