Commodore Absorbent Tray Technology

In response to the global demand for absorbent foam technology, Commodore has developed two different tray solutions.  As you would expect from Commodore, both innovations in absorbent trays are unique, cost-effective methods for producing trays to meet the demands of the marketplace.  These proprietary methods are the pre-padded foam trays, utilizing our patented A-Tray pad, and our auto-absorbent tray, which features open cell structure in a single layer sheet. 

Both types of these trays can be produced on standard Commodore equipment with a few key upgrades.  There are no changes to your thermoformer or extruder that will affect your ability to produce regular closed-cell foam, so you can easily switch between both types of foam with minimal waste.  Unlike other processes, our absorbent foam does not require additional lamination equipment and material, as we are able to control the skin layer on the sheet to effectively mimic the properties of a lamination layer. 

There are many elements to successfully producing these products.  On the extrusion side, optimizing the chemical recipe and process conditions is critical, as is our proprietary die design that allows us to make our single lamination sheet, with skin on two sides and open cell in the center.  Our thermoformers and tooling are designed to optimize the characteristics of the open cell sheet, maximizing secondary expansion and utilizing engineered venting and vacuum paths for optimal tray forming.  We are proud to be able to offer these technologies to our customers so they can stay one step ahead of the demands of their marketplace. 

Here is a comparison of the two types of absorbent trays, demonstrating the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches:

Trays with Foam Pad (A-Tray)

Advantages

• Maximum absorbency, as pad is all open cell.
• Maximum tray strength, as tray is all closed cell foam.
• Lower weight than paper padded trays.
• No leaking of purge through tray edge like absorbent trays

Disadvantages

• Additional cost of making two separate parts, tray and pad.
• Additional labor required for padding operation.

Auto-Absorbent Tray

Advantages

• Consumer demand is increasing.  60% of foam trays in European market are absorbent.
• No separate pad reduces production cost.
• More absorbent surface area for more potential absorbency.

Disadvantages

• High open cell count makes for brittle trays.
• Higher weight required to compensate for brittleness.
• Purge is prone to leaking out from tray edge.

Typical Absorbency – 4D Tray

Padded Trays

• Paper pads…15-50 grams/tray
• Foam pads…30-65 grams/tray
• Polyacrylate pads…120-180 grams/tray

Auto-Absorbent trays

• 80-110 grams/tray

Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have about this exciting technology, or visit us at the K Fair in Dusseldorf next week.  

The Commodore Difference

As I was walking through our assembly department a few minutes ago, I stopped to talk with Pat, who was plumbing a vacuum system on one of our thermoformers.  As we talked, he continued to work, and I observed him wrapping a threaded fitting with Teflon tape.  One would expect that after wrapping the threads he would assemble the part and move on to the next one, but he didn’t.  Pat opened up his can of thread sealing compound and coated the threads with it, right over the tape.  As he explained, either the Teflon tape or the pipe sealant, when used alone, gets us a leak-proof connection over 99% of the time.  Using the tape and the sealant, however, results in a seal that Pat has never seen leak during initial testing. 

At first glance, it might not seem like a big deal to take the extra step of applying the thread sealant, but when plumbing systems that have hundreds of fittings to be assembled, the extra steps really add up to a lot of time.  It would be an easy shortcut to eliminate this step and save some money, and odds are, our customers would never know the difference.  At Commodore, we feel that this extra time is worth the 1% improvement to our product.  Most manufacturers would be happy with 99%, but we feel that we need to strive for 100%, each and every day.  This is just one example of the difference you get with Commodore thermoformers and extruders.