Plastics machinery: Maguire’s MaxiBatch blenders drawing maximum attention

Pat Smith, VP sales and marketing at plastics auxiliary equipment manufacturer Maguire, cuts to the chase when he describes the positive impact that the company's MaxiBatch brand of blenders are having on the company's business. "It is the single fastest-growing portion of our business," he explains, with plastics compounders and extrusion processors eagerly installing the machines in their plants.

Good thing for Maguire it listened to the idea of one of its longstanding customers, explained Smith in an interview with PlasticsToday. He recalls how the customer, a processor of wood/plastics compounds (WPCs), told Maguire of its difficulties processing WPCs, as the compounds' high powder content meant blockages were a regular occurrence. The processor's "impassioned plea to Steve Maguire" led to the development of the MaxiBatch series, and the development of these has been a boon for Maguire's orders books.  

As Smith explains, "The MaxiBatch blender represents a unique alternative to conventional blending systems in compounding operations. The key here is that a simple, inexpensive gain-in-weight blender now has the ability to handle powder as a major ingredient with throughputs up to 8000 lb/hr (3600 kg/hr)." Target processors for the MaxiBatch technology are plastics compounders as ell s those high throughput extrusion processors.

Previously, processors running powdered material typically had to rely on continuous blenders, with their healthy price tag. Not anymore: "A 6+ component MaxiBatch typically costs $30,000 to $40,000 compared to continuous blenders that cost 2 - 4 times that," says Smith. The MaxiBatch offers 5 different dispense devices each selected for the specific ingredient that it will be dispensing, including those poorly flowing powders, flake, regrind or wood flour. By keeping the design relatively simple and modular, so it allows for swift manufacturing, the company is able to keep lead times generally at six weeks or less. Despite the simple design, the units are very capable of handling complicated formulations, says Smith, citing some of the recipes used in solar energy applications as an example.

For Maguire's customers, the sweet pot is reached when these blenders are combined with the company's extrusion control technology, explains Smith. The blender provides real-time consumption information for an extrusion line, and the control collects data from both the extruder and from the takeoff unit. The use of extrusion control remains higher in Europe, he adds, but the company is seeing swift adoption of the technology in North America too and also in China.