Small and flexible: alpha plus extruders for roller blind producer
The French company SPPF based in Cholet Cedex produces 350,000 roller blind boxes and roller blinds per year and is thus known as a specialist in standard and customized PVC system solutions for windows. To extend its production capacity, battenfeld-cincinnati Austria GmbH from Vienna recently delivered a total of three alpha plus extruders with 60 mm diameter to the profile manufacturer. The customer is enthusiastic about this new version of the standard extruder model with BCtouch UX compact control.
20 years ago, battenfeld-cincinnati launched alpha, a product line with a completely new concept: a compact, standardized extruder series to make small technical profiles and pipes available at an attractive price without delivery times.
The sales success of this article has continued unabated ever since. The extruder specialist responded by adding the alpha plus to the range at the K 2019. Technically speaking, it is still the familiar high-tech plug & play extruder model, but this time plus the new BCtouch UX compact control system.
“With its easy, intuitive operation, this control system facilitates daily production work for our machine operators”, says Guillaume Le Roc’h, Production Manager at SPPF. Similar to its large sister, the BCtouch UX control system already long-established in the market, this new control system scores by its clear display of all required features on a 12” screen.
Pop-ups for settings and data input allow operation almost without any previous knowledge. A highly sensitive temperature monitoring facility is also integrated in this compact control system, which is of special advantage where thermally sensitive materials are processed.
Alpha extruders are available in sizes of 45, 60 and 75 mm as basic models, as well as with finely or coarsely grooved feed zones according to customers’ choice. They are equipped with a Knödler drive system as standard and come with an extremely compact design thanks to a highly sophisticated substructure.
SPPF chose the 60 mm version with a smooth feed zone and is very pleased with the new extruders. Guillaume Le Roc’h comments: “The extruders show high-quality workmanship and are consequently very reliable. Thanks to their compact footprint, they are also suitable for flexible use, which is very important in view of our extensive product portfolio.”
Of course, the sales price was also an important sales argument for the roller blind manufacturer. After all, the very combination of the extruders’ technical features with attractive pricing continues to win customers worldwide. More than 1,300 alpha extruders have been sold, 30 of which are plus models.
