Engel tiebarless plastic injection moulding

Engel tiebarless plastic injection molding is a revolutionary approach to the engineering and manufacture of components, using state-of-the-art machinery. It is an approach which, quite simply, drives quality up - and costs down. Launched in 1989 it threw out the previous engineering rule book and has subsequently become phenomenally successful across the globe.

HBC Engineering Solutions currently has 3 such machines in its Kent engineering complex (one 25 ton, one 150 ton and one 220 ton machine).

Benefits of the system, in brief, include:

• Lower operating costs meaning more economical moulding and
• cheaper components and parts
• Much higher quality with greater accuracy than conventional
• tiebar machines
• Larger possible finished product sizes from a much smaller machine
• Increased manufacturing versatility
• Great flexibility to add robots and other automated modules to the
• main machine(s)
• The inherent mould space is much more open, making product
• changes faster

Very low platen deformation combined with a very stiff C-frame, results in absolute platen parallelism, adjustable to a tolerance of one hundredth of a millimetre, whilst providing a much more superior clamping system. Conventional tiebars have only a tenth of the cross section of the new C-frame and extremely low longitudinal expansion with the latter means that the available clamping force is exploited to its full potential so that production reliability is greatly enhanced. The service life of the moulds being used by the system is also improved because of the C-frame’s superior support and vastly reduced platen deformation.

Friction is virtually eradicated by the use of Flexlink technology (the link between the moving platen and the ram of the hydraulic clamping unit). The Flexlink system is a one-piece flexural element which does not suffer any kind of wear, making it frictionless and maintenance-free despite the fact that it does not even require lubrication. The design of the Flexlink also makes access to the ejector coupling extremely easy and convenient.

Typically, only 80% of the normal clamping tonnage needed with a tiebar set-up is required with this new system. That's a 20% saving. The physicality of the system allows complete freedom to access and utilise the whole platen area, which can be very advantageous when using large moulds and/or when requiring additional automation processes (interchangeable machine accessories and integrated proprietary state-of-the-art control systems allow automation of even the most complicated of engineering processes).

Further details of tiebarless injection moulding and its benefits can be found here, or if you have any queries or a product enquiry, please call our team on 01795 586 267 (international: +44 (0)1795 586 267).