Companies collaborate to develop production cell

SMARTcap, a production cell, is a collaborative project by Elmet, Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, Shin-Etsu, and Mettler Toledo.

In the form of Elmet's SMARTshot E and SMARTmix TOP 7000 Pro systems, two of the company's technological flagships are used in the production cell. The system will be presented for the first time at K 2022 at the exhibition booth of Elmet‘s partner Sumitomo. 

In the 26 years since it was founded, Elmet has become a global player in the development and production of equipment for manufacturing silicone parts. Most recently, Elmet has collaborated with three project partners to develop a production cell that manufactures four different lids. The accuracy of the injection process is ensured and documented by a weighing cell. A laser marks the finished SMARTcaps to ensure optimal traceability.

Leading Elmet technology twice over

Lids are manufactured by an Elmet injection mould, featuring an all-electric SMARTshot E valve-gate cold-runner system. Its technological high-end counterpart in material provision is the Elmet SMARTmix Top 7000 Pro dosing system, responsible for precise and reliable dosing of material to the Elmet injection mould.

A Sumitomo linear handling device removes the parts from the mould and transfers them to the weighing cell made by Mettler Toledo. Every single part is weighed there. The result is stored in a database and also displayed graphically to demonstrate the process accuracy of the system. After the weighing process, the silicone parts are marked by laser to ensure highest possible traceability. After lasering, the parts are placed on a conveyor belt.

The interaction provides the magic

The "magic" of this product unfolds in the interaction between the high-tech contributions from the four partner companies. The combination of high-precision dosing (Elmet SMARTmix Top 7000 Pro), the all-electric injection-moulding machine (Sumitomo IntElect), and the electric valve-gate cold runner (Elmet SMARTshot E) enables a level of accuracy in the reproduction of part weights. The special four-cavity injection mould from Elmet injects four different lids made of liquid silicone (LSR) from partner company Shin-Etsu. 

Elmet SMARTmix TOP 7000 Pro

The dosing system is a new development from the Austrian company. Development work focused on reducing the unit's footprint to 1,150 x 790 millimetres. This makes the system the smallest liquid-silicone dosing system for 200-litre container units on the market.

Compared to its predecessor, the SMARTmix TOP 5000 P, the SMARTmix TOP 7000 Pro features a completely new pump system, which now only contains approximately one third of the liquid silicone in the system, making it much easier to clean. This characteristic is very important, particularly for use in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, where the pump unit is dismantled and cleaned each time the material changes, in order to prevent mixing of different types of liquid silicone. Apart from the new pump unit, an optimised follower plate geometry also helps reduce the amount of residual material. The new system boasts a material utilisation level of up to 99.6%. Drums are changed fully automatically to increase ease of use and keep the amount of training to a minimum. Use of special seals made of FDA-compliant materials also predestines the SMARTmix TOP 7000 Pro for medical applications.

Elmet SMARTshot E with SMARTcontrol

The all-electric Elmet SMARTshot E valve-gate cold-runner system is said to guarantee precise filling of every single cavity in a reliable process. Settings for the cold runner are entered on an 18.5" display of the external SMARTcontrol unit. Due to servomotors, it allows needle adjustments in increments of two thousandths of a millimetre. Needle regulation is carried out in real time and monitored continuously by the system. The arrangement of the mini servomotors enables nozzle spacings of 44 millimetres.