Wittmann Battenfeld GmbH Managing Director Georg Tinschert described features of the company's new EcoPower 100 injection press.

But the Kottingbrunn, Austria-based machinery supplier decided to lift the wraps on the new machine a bit early, at the official opening of its new sales and service center in Meinerzhagen — a town about 50 miles northeast of Cologne — on Sept. 10.

Referring to EcoPower as having a favorable price/performance ratio, Managing Director Georg Tinschert described the new five-point toggle clamping system of the press as being largely oil free. He praised the machine’s compact design with Wittmann drier and temperature controllers, as well as hydraulic units with servo-drive pumps, all integrated within its footprint.

The ancillaries also are integrated within the Unilog B6s control system, as is the machine’s Wittmann W800 robot.

Tinschert also pointed to the modular design that enables EcoPower to be used for standard injection molding, cleanroom molding, liquid injection molding, or high-speed applications. EcoPower comes as a fully all-electric machine in the cleanroom version, with electric drive for ejectors, nozzle movement and core-pullers, instead of a hydraulic unit. The cleanroom version does offer hydraulic core pulling as an option.

As with competitors’ machines, braking energy is converted into electricity, but Tinschert said EcoPower distinguishes itself by using the electricity for the continuous heating function, instead of non-continuous functions or feeding power back into the power supply network. He also confirmed that the new EcoPower series does not depend on electric drive technology from Ferromatik Milacron Maschinenbau GmbH, unlike the versions of Battenfeld all-electric models for the last five years.

New development manager Andreas Lechner described further technical features of the new EcoPower line, which ranges in clamping forces from 66-331 tons. The press has a drive belt-free injection unit.

The EcoPower 110 is available in 130-and 350- injection unit sizes, and there will be four injection units available in 130-1330 sizes for the complete EcoPower line. Dry cycle times range from 1.3-2.4 seconds.

Before he pulled off the cover on the EcoPower 110 machine, Tinschert took a look even further ahead, revealing details and names of other new Wittmann Battenfeld molding machines in the pipeline.

These include the 2-platen MacroPower series of machines with clamping forces in the 882-1,764 ton range, and a replacement of the existing 5.5-ton Microsystem 50 micro-molding machine with a new Micro Power series with 5.5-16.5 tons of clamping forces.

The first MacroPower machine will be available in the first quarter of 2010 with 882 tons of clamping force, a 1,102-ton version following in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The new MicroPower machines will be available in the second quarter of 2010.