Injection molding: Flexibility to the fore with new aXos control unit
Making its debut at K 2010 is a twin-screen control unit, called aXos, from injection molding machine machine manufacturer Netstal (Näfels, Switzerland). The upper screen includes a membrane keyboard for manual operation to show status, axis positions, and user-specific markings while the lower screen's main innovations include a free programmable sequence editor so a processor can build his own customized process sequence and will not have to rely on Netstal engineers to create a program specifically for the molding operations.
June 29, 2010
Making its debut at K 2010 is a twin-screen control unit, called aXos, from injection molding machine machine manufacturer Netstal (Näfels, Switzerland). The upper screen includes a membrane keyboard for manual operation to show status, axis positions, and user-specific markings while the lower screen's main innovations include a free programmable sequence editor so a processor can build his own customized process sequence and will not have to rely on Netstal engineers to create a program specifically for the molding operations. It also includes an auxiliary control definition page.
Netstal's Patrick Blessing explains the advantages of the new control. |
"Today our machines have a fixed sequence which can be influenced with a parameter set of more than 15,000 parameters," says Patrick Blessing, head of R&D at the company. "With aXos our customers are free to program any sequence their process requires without limitation. Any inconsistencies in the program will be highlighted before activation." Below both screens is a foldable keyboard including trackball manipulator.
The lower screen provides icon-driven information about production and a message bar to enter parameters. This control will be standard on the company's new hybrid Elion 2200 (220 tonnes' clamp force) and 2800 presses, which will be ready for delivery some time in the first quarter of next year. Blessing says down the road the company plans to offer the control as a retrofit on its Elion and Evos machines already in the market. You can find Netstal at the K in Stand 15D24.
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