Energy & Power, Heating, Cooling & Drying

Major Order For Cooling Circuits Helps Chill Lasers, Optics And 3D Heads

Phil Black - PII Editor 26/09/2017

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A company which specialises in combining additive manufacturing and subtractive engineering (3D printing and milling) has turned to technotrans for Termotek chillers and the first assignment of an anticipated 36 cooling circuits a year have been delivered.

The Swadlincote company Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies (HMT) was set up in 2012 by Peter Coates and Dr Jason Jones, the culmination of an R&D project into hybrid machine tool solutions. It is already proving so successful the company has expanded its production space and capacity.

From the start HMT recognised that the hybrid technology would require cooling and experimentation began.

First contact with technotrans was four years ago but it was last year, after recognising that multiple cooling circuits were needed, that talks with technotrans’ began in earnest.

The ability of the Termotek team (part of technotrans group) to provide multi-channel and bespoke cooling solutions, even in compact environments, was ideal.

“We need to chill the laser, optics and 3D heads which can require three different reservoirs and this is what Termotek/technotrans could provide,” says Peter Coates, technical director at HMT. “Each element might need a different size of cooler so the tailored solution approach made sense.”

“Most of our systems are used to apply small amounts of additive to large substrates where the heat is absorbed but if our customers want to apply to smaller parts or to use increased heat in future we might also need to cool the bed of the machine as well as the laser, optics and heads. Termotek can help with this, too.”

Of the first four chillers supplied, two will be used in Germany and two in Colombia. HMT will supply globally and here again the technotrans worldwide sales and service support network was critical.

HMT was anxious that the chiller solutions should be compact in terms of footprint and the pipework neat and this has been the case. HMT customers must have a chiller and Termotek/technotrans will be the recommended partner and will be used in the majority of HMT systems supplied moving forward.