Details

December 2017

Revolutionary new tool design

In relations to a specific project, Hjerno Tool Factory has created a revolutionary new tool design, which paves the way for far more cavities and more rapid shifts of entire cavities – pretty much without the use of tools, that is.

 If an item is very complex, it may otherwise be necessary to use many sliders with multi-directional pulls within the tool. Thus, the cavities often become so bulky that the tool must either be huge in proportion to the number of cavities or can only contain a few cavities.

Additionally the many sliders and the complexity of a traditional tool make any rapid shifts of the cavities difficult. Something which is normally one of the main problems if the tool is used continuously throughout the year with little time to long-term maintenance or repairs.

Four times as many cavities in the same space
In the attempt to address these issues, Hjerno has succeeded in creating a tool design, which can best be described as if the slides are moved up- and downwards instead of side wards, even though the items are placed normally in the mould base.

"This means that we have been able to place up to four times as many cavities in the tool without increasing the actual tool size," explains managing director Aage Agergaard and elaborates:

"At the same time we have solved the problem of quick cavity shifting so that the tool can get up and running again with a new cavity in under ten minutes. This is handled via independent cavity units, which can be replaced with complete spare cavities, while the tool is placed in the machine.

"Cavities can be moved freely between the form boxes
The independent cavity units contain separate cooling circuits for water as well as a separate ejecting system.

The latter system makes it possible that you only need to trigger a specially developed locking system for the cavities, whereby the entire cavity can be taken out and a new cavity can be inserted and locked with the locking system. In addition to locking the cavity, the locking system also takes care of connecting the ejecting section and the water connection for each cavity.

Additionally the new design makes it possible to move these individual cavities from one mould base to the other - completely independently of how many cavities the various mould bases hold.

According to Aage Agergaard, Hjerno has just delivered this type of tool to a client, who, in this way, expects to be able to continuously upscale tools as well as capacity – among other things by mixing the cavity units with new, extra cavities in larger or more mould bases.

In the picture you can see an example of the new tool design in the form of a mould base for eight compact cavities with one cavity unit inserted.