Heat Exchange On Record Presses

[untitledthe]

I was wondering, why are we still using steam boilers and water cooling towers in the record industry to heat exchange the moulds?
In the injection moulding industry its very common to see temperature devices such as for example the brand Regloplas in double units to control the temperature with water or oil.

Depending on various aspects as material used, product size etc a very common setting what i have seen is 50 degrees celsius. This is ofcourse much lower temperature then what is used in the record industry but looking at the specifications of Regloplas temperature devices, especially the units using oil, a much higher temperature can be achieved, even to 300 degrees celsius.

Another aspect is pressure what is used, where you see in the record industry a pressure of 9 to 12 bar (140 - 170 psi) the Regloplas temperature devices go up to only 7 bar (100 psi) on the bigger units. You would say, there you have your answer, not enough capacity in pressure to sustain a record press but is a better (high pressure) pump the only obstacle to overcome what is keeping the record industry away from these?

Or are these units in a much higher price range then the common boilers and water cooling, as you would need 2 temperature devices for heating and cooling + a high pressure pump?

In terms of efficiency i can get it, when you are running for lets say 4 record presses 1 big boiler and cooling system would probably be more efficient then setting up all 4 record presses with double temperature devices but in a 1 record press configuration a double temperature device setup would not look as a very bad idea to me. Why aren't we seeing this in the record industry, what is the hurdle to overcome?

Here is a example of a Regloplas temperature device mentioned:
https://www.regloplas.com/gb/ProductDetails.aspx?prdtName=Product_150smart&path=Products_Root/Temperiergeraete/smart/Product_150smart

A benefit in addition is with the temperature devices running oil you wouldn't have any water pollution that is possible in common setups which would work negative on the heat exchange, plus the heat exchange of oil is even better then water if i recall right.

Is the common boiler/cooling setup more energy/electricity costs/purchase costs efficient then temperature devices? Or is it the capacity that's lacking on the temperature devices.

Anyone thoughts on this? Enlighten me!

[Aussie0zborn]

The fastest way to heat moulds is with steam. The higher the steam pressure, the faster the mould reaches the required temperature. So the answer to the question is efficiency and economy. Without both you can go broke.

An Italian outfit tried the induction heating process but their public demonstration of their record press was a monumental failure and they have disappeared from the market. I'm sure somebody will pick up this idea and make it happen. In fact, I predict it will happen this year but the operating costs will no doubt be higher than steam.

Injection moulding is a different process altogether. The moulds are predominantly cooled to maintain a constant temperature and the hot melt that's injected into the mould cures almost immediately. There is no heating up to 160 deg C and then cooling down to 20deg C on each cycle. Hence, a CD can be moulded in a 2.5 second cycle.

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[dietrich10]

Viryl is installing our first steam less press presently in Chicago.

will post more info when its closer

[andybee]

so, there are two main advantages on steam/water, based on the same physical law.
(as far as I know)
When the steam goes into the mould, it condensates at the cold steel in the mould labyrinth.
Within this process, a lot of heat is there, going into the mould, and heating it up fast.
(steam becomes water)

On the other hand, you have the evaporation of water (for example in a cooling tower).
When the water moves its aggregate state from liquid to gaseous, a lot of energy is needed
for this, so the water get´s cold, and the water that just turned into gas, has the heat inside,
and can easily transported into the air, to help speeding up heating the atmosphere of the earth...

I think, these processes are called thermodynamics...

Sorry for my bad english
Other processes have to beat this, or even come very close, otherwise it is hard to get
a cycle time approx. 20-25 seconds for one 12" record...

[untitledthe]

Aha, so the first and biggest point i have overlooked in the openingpost is the fact of heat exchange of the entire mould-set from 160 C to 20 C in less then 25-30 sec with compression-molding, - in contrast to injection-molding with a steady mouldtemperature depending what material is used. Having the rather big 12''moulds in mind a cycle would take a eternity to heat and cool down indeed. You might pull off a (highly experimental) setup with injectionmolding-temperature devices on a 7'' manuel press on a, to be honest, hobby basis as there is way less surface to heat and cool down + these temperature devices must be set on pretty extreme settings regarding temperature but also pressure. Cycle times will obviously still not beat a conventional-steam/water system but if you can reach a cycletime for lets say 45 sec this can be acceptable. All in all not a adventure a serious business would buy into.

Another and perhaps even more interesting point came to mention in this topic is the process of heat exchange by the means of induction. As far as common known now here, their are two companies working on this. I wonder how these machine are designed as my experience with industrial machinery heating by the means of induction where only with constant (high) temperatures instead of extreme heating and cooling in short amounts of time required for compression moulding. But i can imagine with the right induction equipement you can heat up fast. Another question is can you heat up a mould with induction the right way and get straight records from it, with other words direct heat the mould with induction, or should you look at more traditional way with the inductionsystem as a generator for steam. Anyway its all still in development as in my eyes something big like this would have been presented at the Making Vinyl conference not long ago.

I have digged up the footage of a induction press mentioned here before which is probably directly heating the moulds. You can see a thermocouple and presumably a low pressure cooling system at the looks of the pipes(connections):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu_Tzq-DoQKTTJR5rqO5-vQ

Thanks for the contribution and more information regarding this topic and join us with you opinion.

[Suresh Babu]

Viryl is installing our first steam less press presently in Chicago.

will post more info when its closer

Any update on the steam less press technology.

Sent from my Redmi Note 5 Pro using Tapatalk

[llary]

Isn't the steamless press basically just an electric steam generator? From the pictures I have seen there are pipes going from the regular steam inlet/outlet into a large box that I presume is basically an off the shelf electric boiler.