TechnoDrive™ 65 PET

Jomar Corp. has designed a machine to specifically run PET resins but can easily switch back to resins more common for injection blow molding such as poly propylene and polyethylene.  The TechnoDrive 65 PET machine evolved from Jomar’s TechnoDrive 65, which is a high-speed production machine first unveiled in 2018. It has a dry cycle time of only 1.8 seconds, making it one of the fastest injection blow molding machines in the industry.

Using this platform as the base, Jomar’s engineers expanded its capabilities by adding a more robust plastifier motor, high pressure valves as well as other improvements such as built-in nozzle heaters used to aid in the processing of PET. The result is a machine that is specifically built to process PET but can also revert to more common resins such as polyolefins by only changing the screw and making some minor adjustments. 

Some IBM machines require a fourth station to process PET. This “extra” station is used to condition the core rods and make sure they are the correct temperature before enveloping the rod in PET. The Jomar TechnoDrive 65 PET accomplishes this task in the ejection station, thereby merging the third and fourth stations. This gives the Jomar the ability to manipulate the core rod temperature and create the optimal processing conditions within a super-fast cycle time.

The TechnoDrive 65 PET further demonstrates the versatility of the Jomar machines. Jomar machines can handle engineering resins and a wide range of PET grades such as PETE or PETG. We’re giving our customers the opportunity to bid for a variety of projects from cosmetic jars in PET to packers in HDPE with the same machine.

Jomar will be demonstrating the TechnoDrive 65 PET machine at the 2019 K show. The machine will be molding 6-cavities of a 50 ml perfume bottle in clear PET.

The TechnoDrive 65 PET can mold a variety of shapes and sizes in PET. One of the limitations however is rooted in the nature of injection blow molding. Unlike injection stretch blow machines, an IBM machine does not mechanically extend its core rods, which provides biaxial orientation and allows for extremely thin walls such as those found in water or soda bottles.

The average wall thickness for a TechnoDrive 65 PET bottle in PET is about one millimeter, so it is more inclined to mold jars, vials and bottles for the pharmaceutical or cosmetic industries rather than the beverage industry.

All PET projects for the TechnoDrive 65 PET would be accepted as a turnkey project where Jomar is building both the machine and mold. This allows Jomar to tailor the equipment to provide the largest processing window and ensure the project’s overall success.

We’re extremely pleased with the TechnoDrive 65 PET machine. We’ve married our experience in material processing with our mechanical knowledge to build Jomar’s most versatile machine. We continue to demonstrate our ability to work with different materials in projects that are considered unusual for IBM. Such was the case at NPE in 2018 when we molded polycarbonate lamp covers for LED bulbs.