/ep_edm/en/contect_1110.html SHINI PLASTICS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

Experience Sharing

2016 Quarter 4 Issue 29

STM and Extruder Integrated Control

Share to:
One Korean-invested company is the international renowned manufacturer of rubber plastics, their products covering the transmission belt, conveying belt, automobile and industrial rubber plastics etc. At present, based on years of accumulated technologies and experiences, it offers the high value-added products and services for the international companies in various fields. In the past seventy years, this company has been continuously providing the premium products and service for the well-received automobiles, electrics and steel enterprises on the market, which established good partnerships with them. 

One of their main businesses is to produce the car-door sealing strip that supporting the modern automobiles. The sealing strips are extruded by plastic extrusion line. As the strict requirement of product quality, the 12 processing points need accurate temperature control during the production. They have different temperature requirements, and which temperature can be freely controlled by the customer within 24℃/75.2℉~65℃/149℉. After the demonstration to customer about the actual requirement during application, the Water Chiller is required, as the required minimum control temperature (24℃/75.2℉) is much lower than the water temperature provided by cooling tower. At last, we designed the Water Chiller collocating with the Mould Temperature Controller (STM) as the solution for them. A set of Water Chiller generates the cooling water, which is distributed to 12 sets of Water Heaters via the manifold. The STM provides 12 individual water loops for 12 processing points to heat up and maintain the temperature. 

Actually, upon this phase, the total solution has already reached the customer’s demands of the process. While in actual application, this kind of control method has better room for improvement. As to help the customer setting the temperature of STM conveniently, to meet their demands of the convenience, we optimized this solution by combining Shini sLink technology based on the network. It sets up the communication between the 12 sets of Water Heaters STM-607W and the main controller of the extrusion line, which is based on the open communication protocol of MODBUS-RTU by RS485 communication port. Through the communication, it achieves parameter centralized monitoring of the 12 sets of Water Heaters about the temperature, state, and start/stop, which is more conveniently. 


Generally, the RS485 communication port enables to connect with maximum 31 clients (In this case, the client is the STM). Once the number of clients is greater than 12, the communication quality will decrease and become unstable. In this case, there are exactly 12 sets of the Mould Temperature Controllers. And the main extruder’s controller is directly connected with the STM via a standard RS485 communication port to meet the demands. But sometimes, the number will exceed this value. However, one of the key elements for industrial equipment on spot is the stability. As to guarantee the communication quality and stability, it adopts the Ethernet connection to achieve the communication. Suppose the number of STM is 21(over 12 sets), it can group these machines according to actual situation, such as make the first group into 11 sets, and the second group into 10 sets. Each group is equipped with a gateway used for communication port RS485transforming to the Ethernet communication port RJ45. Through this method, it basically achieves the unlimited communication for the clients.  


Actually, the above communication method has already been the very mature technology. While the application in plastic molding industry is not much. Most of the plastic molding auxiliary equipment don’t have the communication port or take it as an option. However, Shini has launched the sLink technology since 2013, by adopting the standard communication port RS485 or RJ45based on the communication protocol MODBUS-RTU or MODBUS-TCP, it achieves the intercommunication and interconnection, centralized monitoring, data collection and sharing between the auxiliary equipment and the molding machine, which continuously collects and analyzes the information flow of the molding production. As to fulfill these functions, Shini gradually designed the communication port (RS485) as the standard configuration for the auxiliary equipment to connect the auxiliary equipment to the molding machine, which benefits the customer and brings the convenience for customer as well. Shini has also collaborated with the molding machine manufacturers actively. By internal installing the monitoring program of the auxiliary equipment inside the molding machine controller, it saves customer’s worries during the purchasing and application. It directly connects the communication cable of auxiliary equipment into the controller of IMM, which achieves the intercommunication and interconnection between the machine and auxiliary equipment. At present, for the international renowned molding machine manufacturers, such as the IMM manufacturer of HAITIAN, Chen Hsong, BORCHE, YIZUMI, DEMAG, DONGHUA, TEDERIC, HWAMAD and Victor Taichung etc, their molding machines have achieved the intercommunication and interconnection with Shini auxiliary equipment. When purchasing the equipment, the customer could directly order these functions without special customization, which not only reduces the delivery cycle but also guarantees the mutual reliability of the equipment. 


As the global leading manufacturer of auxiliary equipment, and through the continuous promoting of sLink technology, Shini will build closer relationship between the auxiliary equipment and molding machine. Our purpose is to achieve the direct connection between the auxiliary equipment and molding machine, just as the link between the mouse and computer. It doesn’t need additional operation to fulfill the intercommunication and interconnection between the equipment and saves the customer’s worries, which promoting the healthy and sustainable development of the whole molding industry by close cooperation with various industries.