Comexi’s S-Turret during a demo at drupa

 

One of the major conversion processes for most printer converters, slitting and rewinding cuts down the printed material into reels of a width suitable for the end user customer. With fast machines speeds to match those of the CI flexo presses, slitter rewinders have become increasing sophisticated in recent years and featured heavily at drupa. By Neel Madsen.

Machines for slitting and rewinding the printed substrate perform an important finishing process and are increasingly being developed to reduce downtime and set up as well as waste in order to increase productivity for the converter. Reducing energy costs, expanding the types of material that can be converted and increasing automation are other drivers behind the latest technology.

A veteran in the field

Comexi Group has manufactured slitters since the 1960s. It introduced the Proslit brand in 2004, specialising in the production of slitting and rewinding machinery but also core cutters and inspection systems.

Its top of the range slitter is the Proslit Eikon which features a motor-driven shaftless unwind as well as a turret rewind system. The main features are automatic positioning of blades and counter blades, independent tension controls for each rewind shaft, automatic cross cut and start, automatic change of finished rolls or assisted system for loading finished rolls on a pallet.

The product portfolio also includes duplex slitter rewinders, such as the Compack 2 and Duo 2, single slitter rewinders like the Uno, and single and double turret slitters.

At drupa, the focus was on the new Proslit S-Turret. A single turret machine, it is aimed at the rigid or semi-rigid materials conversion market and has an unwinder with three maximum diameter settings (1000 mm, 1250 mm and 1550 mm) that support three different weight capacities (1350 kg, 2150 kg and 3000 kg respectively).

The machine features the new Advance Lineal Winding System. This control system maintains the lay-on roller fixed to the frame and moves the rewind shaft as it becomes bigger. In the process, it maintains a constant distance between the slitting area and the lay-on shaft area, thereby improving the quality of slitting and rewinding.

In order to ensure maximum rewinding quality, the machine also incorporates a ‘bowed’ roller specially designed for the following types of pre-rewinding application: variable and adjustable bow with a high resolution curve in polyurethane to guarantee maximum durability.

Agusti Combis, marketing director, said, ‘At first, people were surprised to learn that Comexi can offer slitters rewinders for a different market rather than flexible packaging. Customers realised that the same successful technology can also be used in the semi-rigid, rigid and self-adhesive markets. That means innovation, which results in high efficiency and slitting accuracy. We expect strong sales from the leads from drupa in the months to come.’

Full integration

Soma Engineering launched the Venus III slitter rewinder, which is aimed at pharmaceutical and food packaging applications. The system is designed to convert flexible packaging materials in web widths from 1100 mm to 1850 mm. A high performance servo-driven machine, it offers mid and wide web slitting at 800 m/min and features the company’s Tenzomat II tension control system, which enables the user to process a wider range of materials. It has been designed with an overhead web path between the unwind and rewind units which promotes a clean working in environment.

Explaining the reasons behind the development, product manager, Jan Sembera, said, ‘Our aim was to develop a new generation slitter rewinder with an overhead web path between unwind and rewind units for cleanroom applications. The system uses the same components and technology as our well proven Venus model, but now includes enhancements that bring a brand new machine to market while keeping a competitive edge.’

The company also announced new upgrades for its Pluto III slitter rewinder at the show. New efficiencies include automatic knife positioning to reduce job setting times to 90 seconds and semi automatic blade positioning assistant.

The machines were demonstrated running together with the Premia wide web press in full workflow production mode with data for job parameters from initial job preparation to finished product monitored through the company’s new Soma Connection monitoring software. All combined to maximise efficiency and reduce waste over all aspects of the printing and converting cycle.

‘drupa was a major project for us and proved to be a great success,’ said marketing manager, Petr Blasko. ‘Visitors were able to see how the Soma concept of ‘profit making technology’ works through demonstration of the equipment in full workflow production from PDF files through to proofing, printing, final converting, and waste and efficiency monitoring. We sold all the machines on show to customers in the MEA, Finland, Holland and Czech Republic and also finalised important projects for China and Japan as well as taking a number of enquiries for ongoing projects that are very promising. Our next major project will be the opening of the Soma Globe technology and training centre scheduled for the last quarter of 2012.’

Automation

Laem System is situated in Casale Monferrato, Italy, an area known for the production of printing presses, coating/laminating machines and slitter rewinders. Its customers include flexible packaging companies, film manufacturers and specialty web material producers.

The company’s stand at drupa displayed a slitter rewinder featuring full automatic positioning of the slitting heads, automatic motorised displacement of a laser beacon unit for quick core positioning, four rewinding differential shafts for nonstop productions and automatic reel extractor that delivers the finished reels onto a fully automatic unloading device. This device turns 90° and pushes the finished reels to the edge of the unloading arms where a robot collects and puts them on a pallet. The fully automatic system is optimised by the use of bar codes to close the finished reels: in this way orders can be managed from the operator panel of the machine or from a PC with the robot palletising them correctly.

The mighty Titan

Atlas Converting Equipment reported a significant level of enquiries and sales of several Titan slitter rewinders during the Düsseldorf show, including one Titan ER610 compact slitter to Heukäufer Folien GmbH, one of Germany’s leading suppliers of specialised printed and composite films and flexible packaging materials, mainly used in the food processing sector. It said that its daily demonstrations of the new Titan SR9 Series Dual Turret slitter rewinder, which showed the machine running at up to 900 m/min and reel set changes of less than 30 seconds, were well attended.

The concept of the Titan SR9 series technology platform features three separate machine modules of unwind, slitter and rewind sections. The idea being that a converter need only change the rewind section of the slitter from a duplex shaft to a single turret or dual turret configuration, to meet changing production requirements, without the need to change the existing unwind and slitting modules.

The new CW Series technology platform for primary and secondary slitter rewinders for film and flexible materials was also presented. This new technology platform introduces the next generation of more compact film slitting solutions in web widths from 2.5 to 10.4 metres and delivers higher efficiency, increased productivity and reliability, higher quality rewind reels, reduced noise levels and more effective, operator friendly control systems.

This latest Atlas technology also features wireless rewind arm positioning, automatic knife positioning, direct drive web path rollers and running speeds of up to 1500 m/min with more precise web tension control. Electrical cabinets are now fully integrated in to the machines to reduce the space required for installation with ‘under floor’ service trenches also no longer required for the primary slitter rewinders.

Sapphire blue

Ipswich-based Ashe Converting showed its range of slitter rewinders, which include the Sapphire S2 secondary slitter rewinder, the Diamond duplex centre winder and the Opal range of turret rewinders.

The Sapphire S2 features state of the art AC digital flux vector drives and PC touch screen controls. The machine has built in electrical panel, pneumatics and operator panel with remote diagnostics capabilities. It runs at a maximum speed of 700 m/min and handles multiple widths of PP, PA, PE, PET, PVC, laminates and paper.

Matthew Godbold, area sales manager, said, ‘Despite a reduced quantity of visitors, several highly valued contracts were agreed and signed for. We were delighted with the quality of visits and look forward to working closer with the contacts made at the show. The star performer was the highly acclaimed Sapphire S2 Duplex Slitter Rewinder, with the integration of the new enhanced control system which aids customers in achieving optimum roll quality. Our newly launched Opal EC TR for self adhesive label producers was also well received.’