Fast - faster - Hekuma: Hekuma stands for the high and high-performance automation of complete systems for plastics processing, which are used, for example, in medical technology, the automotive industry or in the production of consumer goods. The manufacturer automates not only the removal process in its injection moulding machines, but also upstream and downstream processes such as the punching of contacts or the insertion of punched parts into the injection mould. They work at extreme speeds. Typical cycle times are four to six seconds, with removal times of less than one second being achieved in some cases. This is also the case, for example, with a system from Hekuma with a 64-cavity mould for the production of laboratory sample containers, which is clocked with a cycle time of 5.5 seconds.
However, due to the high production speed, a failure of just a few minutes would quickly lead to tens of thousands of faulty parts. As a result, the mechanical system often reaches its limits, as do the electronics. Hekuma is therefore operating at the (speed) limits of mechanical engineering - and the question arises as to which cables and which energy chains the grippers are equipped with. With the typical cycle times, several million double strokes can be achieved within a few months, and this at very high accelerations of up to 10 g. A conventional cable would fail after just a few days under this load.