New electric IMM for standard applications

The world premiere at K 2025 of the Allrounder Trend by Arburg heralds an exciting new era for the German manufacturer, which is expanding its portfolio of proven high-end technology solutions with completely newly developed electric machines for standard applications. The Allrounder Trend have been designed specifically to meet current market requirements: They are quick to set up, particularly easy to operate and maintain and they produce injection moulded parts extremely reliably and energy-efficiently. Three Trend machines have been presented at the show. These produced electronic connectors, demonstrate automated LSR production and process recyclates reliably.

Trend machines offer low investment and operating costs and are characterised by a fast return on investment (ROI) with a low total cost of ownership (TCO). The purchase therefore pays off even with short machine running times. This also makes Arburg interesting for completely new markets in which high-quality moulded parts have to be produced efficiently and precisely under intense cost pressure. The particularly slim design ensures a compact footprint and space-optimised production, resulting in increased output per square metre.

The easily accessible large mould installation space and cleverly arranged interfaces for electronics, pneumatics and cooling water close to the mould ensure convenient setup and start-up. Peripheral devices can be connected effortlessly using “Plug & Work” and the cylinder module can be replaced quickly if required. This enables the machine to go into production rapidly, saving resources and time. 

The Trend machines are equipped with the new Gestica lite control variant. This features an intuitive user interface with a clear dashboard, making operation very easy, even for non-specialists. Here too, the key word is “easy”: the user interface provides everything at a glance that is needed for operation. This includes information about the job, the current process and direct access to the most important parameters - all intelligently and actively supported by assistance functions. From the dashboard, you can use the touch function to jump directly to the detailed parameter pages for the clamping and injection unit. The status centre, which displays all alarms, the help centre with practical online support and a digital pinboard for production-related personal notes provide additional benefits. In addition, there is a simplified search and fast troubleshooting function involving assisted workflows with visual solution trees and simplified navigation.

Arburg has also placed great emphasis on ease of maintenance and low maintenance requirements. For better accessibility and convenient set-up, the safety gate has been significantly enlarged and the sliding guard on the injection unit can be opened wide in two stages. The maintenance points on the injection and clamping unit, e.g. for grease lubrication, are easily to access without the need for special tools. For in-house maintenance, digital support is available directly via the machine control, complete with operating instructions: “aXw Control MaintenanceAssist” provides step-by-step guidance on the tasks to be performed through a series of video tutorials.

Options can also be retrofitted if required. For example, up to two serial core pulls and freely configurable I/O interfaces. The control cabinet is equipped with numerous slots. For entry into digitalisation, the machines are prepared for an IIoT gateway, e.g. to be able to connect them to the arburgXworld customer portal or the Arburg host computer system ALS. For automated moulded part production, the Allrounder Trend can be equipped with robotic systems from Arburg, such as the linear Multilift Select 4.

The Allrounder Trend is relevant for all industries, such as technical injection moulding and electronics. However, they are not high-speed machines and are not suitable for all special processes. Their performance has been specifically optimised for standard applications. At market launch, there are four sizes in the clamping force range from 500 to 2,000 kN and with electric injection units in sizes 100 to 800. The injection speed is between 200 and 500 millimetres per second. And the naming is also new: in the new system, the clamping force follows the product name Allrounder. The Allrounder 1000 e Trend, for example, has a clamping force of 1,000 kN; the “e” stands for electric and “Trend” for the performance level in the standard machine segment.

At the German show Arburg displayed an Allrounder 1000 e Trend producing electronic connectors; the servo-electric ejection synchronised with the mould movement ensures precision and reproducible dropping of the moulded parts. A turnkey system based around an Allrounder 1800 e Trend produced LSR diaphragm valves fully automatically with a 64-cavity mould; a Multilift Select 16 linear robotic system was used for depositing, separated according to cavities. Finally, another Allrounder 1000 e Trend took centre stage at the arburgGREENworld pavilion and demonstrated an example of upcycling: equipped with the “aXw Control RecylatePilot” pilot function in the Gestica lite, it reliably processes recyclate from used fishing nets into model dolphins.