Core Puller Cylinder Repair

Injection Moulding Machines

Our Work

In addition to manufacturing our own market-leading hydraulic cylinders, Apex are experienced in all aspects of cylinder repair. Hydraulic cylinders are hugely expensive pieces of equipment and repair is significantly more cost effective than replacing with new. At Apex, we are expert at repairing cylinders in such a way as to be almost indistinguishable from a brand new model. Even when we come across a cylinder that is now obsolete, we can engineer our own spare parts as part of a reparation project. We are yet to find a cylinder we can’t fix!

OUR CLIENT

Because of our expertise in this field, we were approached by a large manufacturer of plastic products. This client uses over 50 injection moulding machines. Injection moulding machines pose many issues to the longevity of hydraulic cylinder life, with high demands on every component. In this case, our client had an extremely time sensitive problem with the core puller cylinders on their machines. They were failing due to an inherent fault in their design and the nature of the fault meant that they could fail at any time. It could be a matter of days – but at most a couple of months. When a core puller fails it contaminates the products with oil leaked from the cylinder, causing huge loss of product. In addition to this, there is a large amount of down time while they are replaced (half a day per change).

The repairs were complicated because the cylinders had to be exactly the same size and material as the existing units so that they were 100% interchangeable and they also had to be able to house the electrical sensors. Therefore we were unable to improve on the material strengths or increase the material thickness to make it stronger.

OUR SOLUTION

All our cylinder repairs pass through six departments. Our Strip and Assessment department enables plant breakdowns to be dealt with quickly and efficiently. In this case, they analysed the situation and then liaised with our Design department, who devised a completely new internal drilling layout for the cylinders. This eradicated the common fail point. The design was passed to our in house Machine Shop who produced the new components. These were fitted in our clean and well equipped Fitting Shop, with the utmost expertise. Then they were thoroughly tested by our Inspection Department, according to our ISO 9001 Quality System. Finally, every hydraulic cylinder repair passes through the Spray Shop, where our paint spray protects the cylinder from future corrosion. We can paint according to each client’s exact specifications.

Our efforts and expertise paid off for our client. The Apex solution has been on for over 12 months and is still running without any issues. The cost of the Apex cylinders is exactly the same as the original equipment manufacturer cylinders; and we are saving the client a huge amount of down time in replacing faulty cylinders, not to mention the cost of regular replacement.

Once Apex has created a solution, clients can continue to benefit from our money and time saving expertise by requesting an active preventative maintenance plan. By identifying problems before they occur and administering maintenance at the most opportune moment in a cylinders life, efficient maintenance schedules can save enormously on the costly downtime associated with cylinder failure. Read more with “4 steps to extending the life of hydraulic cylinders“

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The Sectors

We have strong experience working across a variety of different sectors. If you would like to read more about our sector experience associated with this project – click an image for more information….