Matthew Naitove Contributing Editor
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How to Get 50% Higher Output Of Large PVC Profiles
With the right combination of die and cooling technologies, there’s no reason why extruders of large, complex PVC profiles cannot get up to 50% faster throughput than they are now used to.
Read MoreExperience Counts
If I were scaling a mountain peak, I would want to be confident that every member of my climbing team “knew the ropes.” You know what I mean: You want the best people in your plant on those critical jobs.
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New Polypropylene/PPO Alloys Fill a Cost/Performance Gap
A brand-new family of thermoplastics for automotive and other markets offers an intermediate range of cost and performance between those of TPOs and engineering resins such as nylon, ABS, long-glass PP, and some modified PET and PBT materials. GE Plastics, Pittsfield, Mass., has broadened its Noryl range of PPO alloys by adopting a new matrix material: polypropylene. New patent-pending technology allows the incompatible PP and PPO materials to be blended so as to create new balances of stiffness, toughness, and heat resistance in a moderate price range. Initial Noryl PPX grades are priced between $1.20 and 1.80/lb.
Read MoreThe Next Big Thing
The Eighties and much of the Nineties were about living large. Now it's cool to be small. Remember how SUVs and TV screens inflated to gargantuan proportions? Today, the macho thing is to have the tiniest cell phone in town.
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Measuring Pellet Moisture In the Hopper, and in Real Time
Take the guesswork out of drying with new technology.
Read MoreStill Not Safe Enough
Plastics processing is getting safer but still has a long way to go.
Read MoreParts Handling Is No Sweat With New Automated packing Systems
Two makers of parts-removal robots recently introduced examples of labor-saving equipment.
Read MoreGet in the 'Zone'
Have you ever wished you had a secretary to page through each issue of PLASTICS TECHNOLOGY and earmark just the articles related to your job? Well, here's a "virtual" alternative. It's on our website (www.ptonline.com), and we call it the "Zones." It's part of our website's new look that's designed to deliver the information you want more directly.
Read MoreNew Software Makes 3D CAD Easier To Learn, Use and Afford
You can now can leapfrog the previous obstacles of cost, complexity, and a long learning curve.
Read MoreKeep Machines Running in Top Form With New Software ‘Wizards'
Help has arrived for overworked plant managers, process technicians, and maintenance personnel. It comes in the form of three new Windows-based "Smart Manufacturing" software modules from Hunkar Laboratories, Inc. in Cincinnati. Hunkar's Smart Manufacturing philosophy is based on the principle of pre-emptive problem solving, which translates into "Fix it before it's broke."
Read MoreIt Makes Too Much Sense
Exciting innovations take years, or even decades, to make it into commercial production. Some never manage to get off the ground.
Read MoreThermoforming Attacks!
My contact with thermoforming dates back to the fall of 1975, when I wrote my first feature on the subject. What I heard from processors back then was that thermoforming was just beginning to change from “black art” to science.
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