EuroWire January 2022

Technology News

Inspection and sorting for material purity in contract sorting

The requirements for the purity of the materials are therefore also very high. Sortco has been specialised in contract sorting since 2015, and professionally prepares plastic pellets according to customer requirements.

Sortco GmbH & Co KG is a specialist in optical and mechanical sorting of shape and colour deviations in plastic pellets. The company also offers dust removal and metal separation of plastic raw materials. Since March 2021, Sortco has been using two Purity Scanner Advanced systems from Sikora in its new sorting service centre in Niederzissen, Germany, to sort standard plastics as well as optically demanding technical plastics. With these systems, the pellets to be sorted are inspected 100 per cent optically, and impurities from a size of 50µm are automatically sorted out. Technically demanding plastics, such as those used in the medical sector or in the aircraft and automotive industries, require the highest quality standards as well as reliable control and processing of raw materials.

Lars Ruttmann, managing director at Sortco

Sortco uses the Purity Scanner Advanced to sort primarily transparent, natural- coloured and coloured pellets. The focus is on unreinforced materials for use in high- quality optical applications. Each system is equipped with three optical cameras, which detect optical impurities and sort them out using compressed air. The Purity Scanner Advanced can also be extended by an X-ray camera for the detection of metal particles in the raw material. “Black specks are the focus of our sorting work. In addition, we remove all discolorations that have a different colour than the polymer to be sorted,” said Hilger Groß, head of sales and QM at Sortco. “As a service provider, Sortco is confronted with new materials and new and old contamination every day. This means that we also have to adjust the Purity Scanner Advanced to constantly changing prod- ucts and customer requirements. We therefore create a special recipe for each product that can also be used and adapted for future jobs.” During sorting, the Purity Scanner Advanced automatically records the number of defects, the smallest edge length of the optical defect, the con- tamination area and, for example, the size class of the defect, which can be freely adjusted and specified according to customer requirements. In addition, the system detects the intensity with which the colour deviation was detected. QED Wire Lines Inc QED specialises in equipment for in-line heat-treating, cleaning and coating of steel wire. Its furnaces are custom built for multi-strand annealing, stress relieving, patenting and tempering processes. With patented flow technology, the fluid systems integrate cleaning efficiency with high wire speeds. QED’s rugged liquid metal furnaces apply heavy and commercial coatings of zinc, aluminium and Galfan®. Read the full story in the March issue

Plastic pellets are optically inspected and sorted by the Purity Scanner Advanced

All key data is checked again at the end of the job, then stored, and a test report is generated for the customer. Logging of the results is also possible. Sortco managing director Lars Ruttmann expects increasing demand for optically sorted rawmaterials in the future: “Sorting is in demand because manufacturers have recognised that special requirements also necessitate special measures. We are pleased to have found such a reliable partner in Sikora and its sorting system, with whom we successfully cooperate in our core business.” Sikora AG www.sikora.net Videx Machine Engineering Ltd Videx will show videos and present samples made on its new lines. The company’s forge line from coil and bar can shear to length, chamfer, extrude, forge in two stations, cool and thread roll diameters from 20 to 63mm, and lengths from 200 to 1,000mm. The weld-stud line from coil can straighten and cut to length, chamfer, drill, insert aluminium ball, inspect and apply optional heading. Read the full story in the March issue

See us on stand 11A09

PWM Ltd PWM’s range of cold welding machines, on show at wire 2022, will include small handheld machines, welders that can be used on a workbench or supplied with a trolley, and large energy-efficient rod welders. PWM (Pressure Welding Machines) manufactures both manual and powered cold welders for wire, strip and profile, with capacities ranging from 0.1 to 30mm. Read the full story in the March issue Medek & Schörner GmbH Medek & Schörner will be exhibiting and demonstrating its cable marking machines and optical fibre processing lines. Machines on display will include an optical fibre colouring/ribbon/micromodule coating device with LED curing; a machine module for intermittent ribbon bonding; and intelligent camera supervision systems with logging and alerting (Industry 4.0-ready interfaces). Read the full story in the March issue

32

www.read-eurowire.com

January 2022