Our New Website is Live!

Commodore is pleased to announce the launch of our new website at www.commodoresolutions.com.  The new design not only incorporates a user-friendly interface that visitors will find is easy to navigate, but has more information about both of our business units and what we offer to our customers. 

Our product offerings are now easily viewed via the online catalog, which is easy for us to keep updated as we continue to add items.  All catalog items are categorized in easily identifiable groups for browsing ease.  In addition, we can easily publish technical documents and specifications for our customer’s benefit.

Both Commodore Plastics and Commodore Technology now have a platform to share our expertise with the world.  Please click through to take a look, and feel free to send us your comments!

Heading to Russia

Wow, here we are in mid-January already.  I suppose that belated new year wishes are in order!  We have been off to a tremendous start to 2011 at Commodore, with interest in our equipment and tooling at an all time high.  Much of the recent interest in our products has come from Russia.  It seems that the economy is really picking up there and the demand for expanded polystyrene foam is growing.

With that in mind, Brad, Eivind, and Kurt are preparing to travel to Moscow for Interplastica 2011.  Held at the Zao Expocenter, this show is in its 14th year, and is quickly becoming an important exhibition for the plastics industry in Russia and Eastern Europe.  The show runs from January 25 to the 28th.  After the show, there will be some customer visits throughout Russia, and then back to Bloomfield for the guys.

If you are planning on attending, stop by and visit us at booth FC03.  For more information, visit the Interplastica homepage.

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. 

Commodore Summer Picnic

A few weeks ago, Commodore hosted a company wide on-site employee summer picnic.  A big top tent was set up in our center courtyard and King’s Catering prepared a picnic feast for all three shifts.  Commodore owners, managers, and supervisors all got involved as they helped serve our hardworking production staff.  Burgers, dogs, beans, salads, and more were served at 12 noon for B shift (including all staff from our Technology Divison), 8pm for C shift, and then 4am for our A shift personnel.  Adding to the fun every employee randomly drew an envelope from a hat, each envelope containing a scratch off lottery ticket. Some lucky employees also had a $20, $50 or $100 surprise inside their envelope!  Delicious home made deserts were provided by Sherry Carey, Julie Fox, and Judy Rosenbauer.  Special thanks to Sherry, Julie, and Leigh for organizing the picnic and, of course, thank you to George, Jeff, Brad, and Anne for encouraging and supporting this fun event!

More Extrusion Capacity for Commodore Plastics!

Commodore Technology has just delivered a new 3½-4½ tandem extrusion line to our sister company, Commodore Plastics.  As has become standard practice, this extruder features numerous technological advances in order to improve the extrusion process to produce the best foam at the lowest cost possible.  

Perhaps the biggest single change on this line is the screen changer.  Although we are big fans of the Beringer/Dynisco/Xaloy slide plate style screen changer, we have long wanted to experience the benefits of rotary filtration.  We have been familiar with the Gneuss brand for a while, and the time was finally right to purchase one of their SF60 units to try out. The ever-present challenge of achieving greater process stability should be aided by this awesome piece of equipment.

Looks good, doesn't it?  We are currently preparing the line for startup, and will be making foam next week.  We will report back on our initial impressions of the Gneuss, along with some other highlights of the new line soon. 

New Thermoformers from Commodore

Over the past few years, there has been an ever increasing demand from our customers for an all-electric thermoformer.  As a result of this demand, we are pleased to announce that we are going to introduce two different electric machines.

Kurt Bartosch, our Engineering Manager, has spent quite a bit of time researching how to best build a machine with servo actuated toggles.  Sure, this type of machine already exists, but current designs on the market are both complex and expensive.  Commodore's philosophy on thermoformers has always been to keep it simple, reliable, and economical.  Thanks to technological advances in servo motors, drives, and actuators, we are finally comfortable offering an all electric thermoformer that adheres to our ideals. 

At this time, we plan on making servo-actuated form stations for our SX-44 and SX-28 machines.  After all of the design details are worked out, we will most likely build a 28 for our own foam plant, along with our first ever high speed trim press for 30" wide sheet, the TP-30HD.

With a form station capable of over 50 cycles per minute at full stroke length and a trim press that can operate up to 150 CPM, we feel that this machine will please anyone that needs a high-speed all-electric thermoformer.  Keep an eye here for more details over the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading!