Double E has always taken pride in applying its experience and expertise to help customer's upgrade their existing converting machine to perform more efficiently and provide a higher level of safety for their operators. As an example, Double E recently worked with a leading supplier of sustainable plastic sheets, compounding and packaging solutions. At one of their larger manufacturing facilities for custom sheets and roll stocks, Double E helped the customer deal with tension control issues on a couple of their production lines.
The first line had a double unwind with a steel bar using two clamp cones stuck into tired looking safety chucks. This line also had a tension system that consisted of a crude and unsafe clamp tightened on a drum. Since there was no true tension control on the material, it had a tendency to stretch and wrinkle going into the plastic calendaring rolls. The second line had a similar setup with clamp roller bearings and a solid steel shaft which also lacked tension control. This line also proved very inefficient in that it only had one unwind.
To alleviate the issues on the first line, Double E engineered a double roll stand that would mount up to the frame on the customer's machine. This stand consisted of two DG-2000 aluminum bladder shafts held by four safety chucks and regulated by two pneumatic brakes. Close loop tension controls with load cell frames were used to regulate tension. A similar setup was engineered for the second line. However, instead of engineering a complete double roll stand, Double E used the customer's existing unwind upgrading the safety chucks, shafts and brakes and then mounting a second bracket with a chuck, shaft and brake combination in order to successfully convert to a more efficient double unwind. A special bracket was then built to hold a load cell frame to allow for tension control. This would allow the customer to perform quick roll changes utilizing the double unwind configuration and provide tension control for both production lines.
By building a whole new double unwind stand on the first line and upgrading the second line to a similar configuration by utilizing what the customer already had, Double E was able to alleviate the tension issues that the customer experienced. Currently Double E is engineering similar solutions for their remaining production lines. This project should prove to be an incredible return on the customer's investment due to the increase in productivity, product quality and safety for the machine operators.
