U.S. Debut of Versatile Injection Stretch-Blow Machine

At NPE2018, Kiefel Technologies is showing for the first time in the U.S. the Blowliner single-stage ISBM machine from its daughter company Mould & Matic Solutions. Major advantages of this machine are said to be its compactness and its versatility. It can process PET, PP, and HDPE; it can also be upgraded to multilayer barrier applications at any time. It also provides the flexibility to mold containers from 10 ml to 5 L on the same machine.

In this linear machine layout, the preform injection molding unit is based on a servo-hydraulic Engel press with a vertical clamp. Preforms can be molded in eight to 64 cavities using a hot-runner tool with valve gates. The blowing station accepts one to four rows of preforms in 10 to 150 mm diam. Each row of cavities has its own pre-blow and main-blow valve so that the pressures can be set individually. The stretch-blow unit has servomotor drives for exact repeatability, precision, and energy efficiency. The integrated linear robot has a vacuum gripper to unload finished bottles and place them on a conveyor or into boxes.

The machine at the show is a Blowliner M (Medium), which permits cycle times of 10 sec. The smaller Blowliner S can achieve 8 sec. At NPE, the machine is making 250-ml PET pill bottles weighing 30 g in a two-row tool with 12 cavities. Maximum throughput of the “M” model is 286 lb/hr of PET.