600 W series grinders Hellweg Maschinenbau’s 600 W series of digitally controlled grinders can turn a wide variety of plastic films into uniformly cut flakes for recycling. The films, made of materials that can include PET, PE, PP, PS, PVC, PC, PLA, HDPE or LDPE, are force-fed using tamping screws. The grinders use low-power motors rated from 45 kilowatts (kW) to 110 kW, and depending on version, have five or seven rotary blades, plus two or three static blades. All versions come with Hellweg’s own digital Smart Control system, which captures parameters such as power consumption, motor speed and bearing temperatures, and work with an internal logic processor to respond to fluctuating operating conditions to maximize operating efficiency.
What’s new? The 600 W series grinders. At the Fakuma plastics processing trade show in October in Germany, Hellweg displayed the MDSG 1500/600 W model, the first to become available; it also plans to release versions called MDSG 600/600 W and MDSG 600/300 W. The first number denotes the working width in millimeters, and the second denotes the diameter of the rotors. The first model, the MDSG 1500/600 W, has a working width of about 59 inches and about 2-foot-diameter rotors.
Benefits Low power consumption and operating costs. The grinders’ motors operate at 70 kilowatt hours (kWh) to 90 kWh while reaching throughputs of up to 11,023 pounds of film per hour. The grinders have a durable, heavy-duty design that offers trouble-free operation, even with contaminated materials. The blades are wear-resistant and require no adjustment of the cutting gap, which provides additional cost savings. The blades’ double scissor-cut technology results in flat, sharp-edged flakes that are ideal for further processing, and depending on the screen size used, fines make up 3 percent or less of the total output.
Hellweg Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, Roetgen, Germany, 49-0-2471-4254, www.hellweg-granulators.com
David Tillett | Associate Editor
Associate Editor David Tillett writes and edits for Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing, Plastics Recycling and The Journal of Blow Molding. He covers new products, industry news, patents and consumer and business equipment. He has more than 20 years of experience in daily newspaper, online and magazine journalism.