New BOBST K5 EXPERT unveiled at Bobst Manchester Open House
Over 80 visitors from around the world attended this year’s Bobst Manchester Open House held at the company’s Competence Centre in the UK in October.
The event saw the world premiere of the NEW BOBST K5 Expert, said to be the highest productivity metalliser in the world.
The BOBST K5 Expert, the next generation of the successful K5000 metalliser, can run at speeds up to 1,200m/min, is available in widths from 2,450mm to 3,650mm and can house increased roll diameters of up to 1,270mm to meet new industry trends for improved productivity.
Once again BOBST is setting new standards in vacuum metallisation for the packaging industry. The K5 EXPERT houses the largest coating drum in the industry at 700mm that improves collection efficiency by 16 per cent; this means less aluminium consumption and increased boat life resulting in maximum productivity.
The K5 EXPERT features design innovations throughout the machine including a totally redesigned evaporation source providing the widest coating window in the market, up to 50 per cent wider than some competitor machines which translates in better coating uniformity and collection efficiency, minimising aluminium wire waste.
A more intuitive HMI screen and software interface make the machine easy to operate. The new design of the machine allows the operator to operate everything from the front of the machine and to be positioned much closer to view the evaporation source and metallisation process through the strobe window; the new boat power controls are extremely easy to operate and are located in front of each boat.
Another brand new feature, unique in the industry, is the Automatic Sequential Control (ASC) system that speeds up start-up of the machine with minimum operator involvement required, making the K5 EXPERT easy to operate.
In addition to the well-known BOBST Winding Mechanism based on ‘true tension’ control, the new model incorporates low friction Ferrofluidic seals for an even better tension control on the rewind; all-in-all producing a virtually wrinkle-free roll-to-roll vacuum metallisation process.
The K5 EXPERT has been designed with reliability, serviceability and robustness in mind and as such has a host of new features to give our customers total peace of mind, maximum machine uptime and product quality consistency.
It also has a variety of energy saving and waste reduction features including ECO mode which reduces energy consumption by up to 50 per cent during stand-by and Film Save mode which has a synchronised faster shutter action (opening in just five seconds) and aluminium wire ramp up to minimise the amount of un-metallised film (waste) to less than 400m per roll.
As an option, the High Deposition (HD) source has an improved design for higher speed of operation for those metallisation jobs that require a high deposition rate of up to 4.0 OD.
The new machine provides significant cost saving innovations to reduce energy consumption, consumables usage and film waste which results in the lowest production costs available in the market. In addition, faster venting and pump down times results in a reduced production cycle, which increases the number of batches/rolls per day.
The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the K5 Expert is reduced by 25 per cent compared to other metallisers available in the market.