It was a busy Day 1 of Tire Technology Expo 2018 for 4Jet, as the company announced a strategic cooperation deal with LY Holding to offer laser tire mould cleaning as a service. Day 2 saw just as much interest around the stand as 4Jet demonstrated its next-generation STMCS laser mould cleaning service. The redesigned machine is now available for mould sizes from typical passenger car to truck and bus tires.
“We’ve been doing this kind of machine for several years, but this is the second version of this machine. We changed the laser to one that is faster – it’s a little more difficult to steer and to control, but it’s a lot faster, and the cleaning result is much better. It looks like a brand-new mould,” explained chief financial officer Armin Kraus. “In Europe it’s common to have spring vent-type moulds, but in Asia and the USA it’s not standard. Many people are still sand blasting moulds, which really cannot be used when you move to spring vents – you need to change the technology. Laser, from our perspective, is the best way of doing that.”
Laser cleaning doesn’t destroy the mould, mitigating the damage caused by sand blasting. It also means that fine structures increasingly seen in tire design are not removed by opting to clean using sand blasting.
“The automation also means that the results are always the same,” Kraus added.
21 February 2018
