At drinktec, NETSTAL will present the new PET-LINE with side entry to the international trade audience for the first time as part of an exhibition appearance. The market launch of the new series already took place in the fall of 2020 with models of 4000 kN clamping force or molds with up to 128 cavities. Now NETSTAL has expanded the portfolio to include variants with 3000 kN and is bringing a PET-LINE 3000-4000 to its booth in Hall C5. The system is suitable for molds with up to 96 cavities and impresses with its particularly fast lock-to-lock time of just 1.9 seconds. "Our strategy of re-sorting the market situation in the side-entry system sector is paying off. With the new PET-LINE, we are now winning significantly more new customers than before. The system convinces customers with lower manufacturing costs per preform. To reach further target groups soon, the 5000 kN model is already under development," says Renzo Davatz, CEO of NETSTAL and member of the Executive Committee of the KraussMaffei Group. The new PET-LINE 3000 can already be ordered and the first models are already running successfully at customer sites. NETSTAL will supply separate information on the sales launch of the larger PET-LINE 5000 later.
Fully compatible, higher productivity and less energy consumption
"In the production environment, the new PET-LINE was compared with similar machines from other manufacturers. Existing 96-cavity molds and post-mold-cooling stations were used in the tests. Energy consumption was reduced by 20-25% with the new PET-LINE. At the same time, material throughput increased due to the faster cycle time. The customer produced more preforms per unit of time at significantly lower electricity costs," explains Stefan Kleinfeld, PET Product Manager at NETSTAL. The considerable energy savings are the result of many innovations developed and implemented at NETSTAL. In addition to the latest generation of drives and inverters, the electric toggle without ball screw and adaptive control play a key role. Thanks to the adaptive controllers, the machine independently adjusts the parameters to the process. "The PET-LINE learns the weight of the mounted take-out gripper and automatically optimizes the driving profiles for fast removal. Furthermore, the machine performs an independent estimation of the mounted mold weight and optimizes the movement time for optimal opening and closing movements. Since the drives are always equally loaded in the process, an elevated level of efficiency is achieved and the power yield is higher," says Stefan Kleinfeld.