Welding plastic: choosing a manual welding extruder
The twenty-first century can undoubtedly be called the century of plastic. More and more technical parts and household items are made from it. Polymer materials have been developed that are as hard as stone and as strong as steel. Well, in terms of corrosion resistance and chemical inertness, plastic simply has no equal. In addition, it is light, unbreakable and can take on almost any shape and properties.
The use of polymer materials in all areas of industry and domestic conditions makes the repair of plastic products, as well as the connection of parts, relevant. As in the case of metal, these works are called welding. It is based on a similar principle: the material is heated and supplied to the surfaces to be joined.
True, the low melting temperature of polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene and polystyrene makes it possible not to preheat the workpieces with which you are working so much, unlike welding metals. It will also not work to use high voltage for heating: plastic is a dielectric and does not conduct electric current. A manual welding extruder comes to the rescue.
Design and principle of operation of a manual machine for welding plastic
The shape of the extruder is somewhat reminiscent of a World War II submachine gun with a side-mounted magazine, only more massive and more angular.
The unit for welding plastic products is most often made with a pistol-type handle, like many other tools, for example, an electric drill.
The design of any extruder includes the following elements:
- Electric drive . This function is performed by a powerful electric motor, which is installed at the rear of the device. Power is supplied from a 220 volt network.
- Electric heater with fan . Here, again, with the help of electricity, a stream of hot air is formed, intended to bring the workpieces into a softened state.
- Material feed chamber . It has a tubular shape, hollow inside, but the axis of an auger screw runs through its center, like in a meat grinder. When rotating, it not only crushes the material fed into the chamber, but also moves it towards the outlet, generating the necessary pressure.
- Extrusion chamber . Here the crushed and melted plastic accumulates and, under pressure, begins to flow out of the hole at the end of the chamber.
- heating element . Creates a heating jacket around the feed and extrusion chamber, heating and melting the plastic.
- Welding shoe . This is a nozzle that fits onto the feed nozzle of the extrusion chamber. Thanks to the shoe, the heated plastic mass has a certain shape. This allows you to work with different welding seam configurations.
- Adjustment block . Has controls for changing heating parameters and screw rotation speed.
The principle of operation of a manual welding extruder is fundamentally as follows: the filler rod fed into the apparatus or plastic granules in the loading chamber begin to soften and become viscous.
The auger screw crushes and pushes the plastic until it accumulates in the extrusion chamber. From there it is squeezed out under pressure, just like cream is squeezed out using a pastry syringe. At the same time, hot air supplied to the workpieces from the nozzle heats them to the point of gluing with the exiting mass.
The result is a seam that accounts for about 80% of the strength of a monolithic product. In the case of thin sheet structures, the fracture line will not even pass through the weld, since the seam will have greater strength than the surface.
Features of the device
Despite the operating principle common to all welding extruders, they may have some differences.
The parameters of the devices determine their scope of application.
Power
One of the main parameters in any tool. It determines both the operation of the auger screw drive, which crushes and feeds plastic, and the operation of the heating element. The performance of the extruder directly depends on the power, that is, how quickly it can work with the maximum length of the weld seam.
Like any electrically heated item, a hand extruder must have quite a lot of power to operate comfortably and quickly. For most devices on the market, it ranges from 1600 to 3600 Watts.
The larger this parameter, the more plastic it can melt and feed through the shoe onto the workpieces being welded.
Thickness of connected products
Determines which workpieces the machine can operate with. It depends linearly on the power - the higher it is, the thicker the parts can be taken for welding. This parameter is relevant for production and repair, since not everyone has the need to weld thick sheets.
The lower threshold usually starts from 1.5 mm. Thinner sheets can also be joined, but in this case the workpiece may be deformed under the influence of powerful heating. The upper limit for powerful devices can reach 40 mm.
With greater thickness, the strength of the weld drops sharply, since heating and melting such a workpiece to its entire depth is already problematic.
Bar diameter
For models that feed a plastic rod, the permissible diameter parameter is entered. For professional models it is 5 - 6 mm, otherwise it will not be possible to provide the required productivity per kilogram of plastic per hour. Compact models for smaller product thicknesses and rods use 3 mm.
Feed Type
To operate, extruders require a continuous supply of material, which the machine extrudes into workpieces in a molten state.
The material can be in two versions - plastic filler rod or granulate.
The first option turned out to be more convenient and became much more widespread than the second for several reasons:
- The rod wound into coils is more convenient to transport. If the shipping packaging is damaged, the material does not suffer critical damage. But when the bag broke, the granulate spilled out, and no one collected it anymore.
- The rod brought into the receiving chamber can be fed until the coil unwinds. You only need to slightly release a few turns for subsequent work. The granulate is poured into a special hopper. In order to fill it, it must be removed. The open type hopper is inconvenient to use; material can spill out of it. But even in this case, to equip the extruder you need to either take time away from work or have an assistant on staff.
Controls
Simple models of extruders are equipped with only a pair of mechanical switches - handles with divisions. Using them, you can adjust the temperature of the supplied plastic mass and its feeding speed.
An advanced professional tool is equipped with electronic systems. Here the electronic unit is responsible for the adjustment, and the information is displayed on the liquid crystal display.
As a cherry on the cake, it is equipped with ambient temperature sensors to minimize the difference in the output of the plastic mass.
Performance
Since not all operators can directly and accurately connect power and the amount of work that a tool can perform, the concept of productivity per unit of time is introduced.
This characteristic shows how much molten plastic mass the device can produce per hour. Accordingly, the higher the indicator, the more suitable the device is for professional use for large volumes of work.
Measured in kilograms per hour, it can vary from 0.5 to 3 kg/h.
Have you ever worked with a manual welding extruder?
It happened! It didn’t happen
Manufacturers
Unlike such common tools as drills, grinders and hammer drills, manual welding extruders are characterized by a very narrow specialization. There is practically no mass demand for them, but those specialists who purchase this device are well versed in the characteristics and are ready to pay hundreds of thousands of rubles for a professional tool. True, the risk is high.
For example, an extruder is purchased to splice plastic elements of a swimming pool. The cost of a personal swimming pond is very high, and if you imagine that the clients’ tanks began to leak due to welding with a low-quality apparatus, it’s not a matter of tightening a couple of screws. A loss from complaints can put an end to a profitable business. That’s why they buy an expensive branded device so as not to tarnish their reputation.
This is the situation on the equipment market. A hand extruder is almost impossible to find in a regular hardware store. It is sold either by specialized organizations on order, or via the Internet on specialized websites. And the price of such a device starts from 50 thousand rubles. Powerful specimens are already much more expensive: 200 - 500 thousand.
Taking a “left” tool in a professional business is like failure, so you should focus on products from reliable manufacturers.
Munsch
Germany. It seems to be real, without Chinese assembly. High-quality reliable assembly and materials. High maintainability, which is important for a device of this class - after a breakdown you won’t throw it away, you will be sorry for the money spent. However, a breakdown still has to happen, because everything is thought out to the smallest detail. Most tools have separate heating of the mass and the workpiece, which allows you to work outdoors at low temperatures.
Leister
Switzerland. The company does not advertise where the production is located, but users trust it as long as they are satisfied with the high quality of the tool. A well-known brand in Russia, there are several lines of different capacities. Leister’s “trick” is an advanced system for intelligent control of the extrusion process. Information is displayed on the display, the user has access to a large number of precise settings.
Source: https://tehno-gid.net/hand/svarka-plastika-vybor-ruchnogo-svarochnogo-ekstrudera.html
Design and operating principle of manual welding extruder
A manual welding extruder is a tool for performing repairs and maintenance of products made from polypropylene, as well as related materials with a low melting point. In industry and everyday life, the unit is usually used when installing a pipeline.
Design
Any welding extruder, regardless of model and purpose, consists of two units:
- Temperature . Responsible for heating the plastic to operating temperature. Most models are equipped with a relay that limits the degree of exposure.
- Worker . The feeding mechanism is responsible for supplying the filler material to the workpiece to be joined through a screw apparatus.
Some devices are equipped with a grinding mechanism to prepare the additive composition for use. We are talking about professional extruders for welding polypropylene. They are adapted for any type of plastic, regardless of size and strength. Budget models can only function on pellets.
A typical model consists of the following elements:
- Electrical engine;
- loading node;
- screw mechanism;
- melt zone;
- a heating element;
- nozzles for applying the composition to the surface;
- Control unit with thermal relay.
For what materials is it applicable?
The device is designed to work with polymer thermoplastics , which under the influence of high temperature acquire high elasticity or become fluid. Attempting to heat thermoset plastic results in an irreversible chemical reaction.
Polymers have different melting points. Low pressure polymers (LDP) change their state of aggregation at 120 Cº, polyvinyl chloride - at 220 Cº. The melting point range of other industrial compositions varies between 160-220 Cº.
High-quality units are equipped with a mechanism for adjusting the temperature of the mixture, which allows you to work with any polymer.
Operating principle
The principle of operation of the extruder is based on the supply of molten filler material to the working surface. To do this, you need to place rods or granules in the loading unit, depending on the type of model.
After loading, the operator starts the engine, heating the plastic to the specified parameters with streams of hot air. The resulting homogeneous mass is supplied to the working nozzle, through which it enters the working plane in the form of a strip, the size of which is limited by the size of the nozzle. The seam is formed during the natural cooling of the molten mass.
Operating rules
A manual extruder for welding plastic is quite easy to use. To obtain basic skills, it is enough to familiarize yourself with training videos on the Internet . During the work process, it is necessary to follow the operating instructions for the device and take into account the properties and type of material being joined - the approach to sheet products differs from the methods of welding pipes.
Before use, it is necessary to carefully prepare the working surface. To do this, it is cleaned of contamination and moisture is removed.
Special care is required when joining dissimilar materials because the melting point of different materials may vary . For example, welding low-pressure plastic and polypropylene will not be a problem due to similar temperature characteristics, but HDPE and PVC cannot be joined.
To obtain a high-quality and reliable seam, the following rules should be observed:
- It is necessary to control the rules for loading bars into the machine. Incorrect feeding can cause malfunction of the grinding mechanism, which can lead to a non-uniform working mass.
- Set the heating temperature according to the materials used.
- The nozzle should be pressed firmly against the surface. If the elements being connected have a simple shape, then this requirement is easy to comply with. When working with curved sheets and other surfaces of complex shape, it is necessary to use replaceable nozzles.
- In the absence of information about the material of manufacture, the workpiece should be exposed to a stream of hot air, without the use of filler rods. The temperature at which the part begins to melt will make it possible to determine its composition with high accuracy.
Model selection
When selecting an extruder for soldering plastic, you should pay attention to the following characteristics:
- Device performance;
- Range of adjustment of operating parameters;
- Maximum thickness of joined workpieces;
- Diameter of the rods used.
- Availability of replaceable nozzles;
Inexperienced users do not pay enough attention to the last point, despite its importance. The consumption of filler material depends on the correct choice of nozzle.
Homemade device
The cost of the new extruder is quite high - entry-level models start at $300. This encourages craftsmen to invent various homemade products. Having the necessary skills, you can assemble a manual extruder with your own hands without much expense. On the Internet you can find working drawings of working devices with various characteristics.
To assemble the simplest unit, you will need an industrial hair dryer and a commutator type motor , which can easily withstand constant changes in operating mode. You will have to feed the bars manually. Nozzles are made independently or spare parts of existing models are purchased and adapted.
The use of a plunger drive will allow you to perform work on granular raw materials.
Manufacturers
The market offers consumers many models of foreign and domestic production. The most popular manufacturers are the following companies:
- Munsch;
- Leister;
- Dohle;
- Stargun;
- URAL;
- RSE.
The average cost of Russian models is $600-800. The prices of foreign devices are higher: $900-1200.
Extruder welding
Before work, it is necessary to prepare the connection area in accordance with the requirements described above. Then the operator must remove the lock from the device and adjust the temperature according to the characteristics of the material used.
When applying the composition to the surface, sudden movements should be avoided . During a break, it is necessary to reduce the temperature to 50 Cº - this will prevent the mixture from cooling down and will allow you to quickly return to work.
Conclusion
Using a welding extruder, you can qualitatively join plastic products of any size. Operating the device does not require special skills, so the process of becoming familiar with the features of use will not take much time.
Source: https://svarka.guru/oborudovanie/vidy-apparatov/ruchnoy-ekstruder.html
Features of choosing a manual extruder for polypropylene: device, operating principle, manufacturers
For specialists professionally involved in laying plastic pipes, it is important to have in their arsenal a special tool that allows them to create a reliable connection between materials with a low melting point. Recently, many materials with similar characteristics have been created. These include low-density polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene and others. A manual welding extruder can ensure their reliable connection.
A manual extruder is made in the form of a mechanical device, using which the joining of materials is carried out in stages: first, the plastic is heated to give it a viscous state, and then the resulting mass is squeezed onto the surface at the joint. After cooling of HDPE, PVC and other low-melting plastics, a strong weld seam appears at the site of the work.
Extruder device
To make it more convenient to work with this device, manufacturers produce it in the form of a pistol with a handle and an upper nozzle designed to heat the working mixture. The following working units can be distinguished in the extruder design:
- thermal heater;
- chamber for melting plastic;
- crushing screw mechanism;
- extrusion chamber;
- control system;
- welding nozzle;
- feeder;
- engine.
Operating rules and model selection
Before you begin welding plastic products, it is necessary to fulfill a number of conditions due to the characteristics of the material. It is necessary to remove all existing contaminants from the surface of the products to be joined and ensure that they do not come into contact with wet material during work.
To perform the work properly, it is necessary to take into account the difference in melting temperatures of the materials being joined if they differ in chemical composition.
Thus, a manual extruder can be used for welding HDPE and polypropylene, since these materials have a melting temperature range that completely or partially overlaps. When it is necessary to combine materials from PVC and HDPE or polypropylene, difficulties often arise.
When working with such materials, a manual extruder can only be used to join products that are made of identical materials.
Since the manual extruder has a compact size, welding of plastic elements can be carried out using this device without stopping the operation of the products being joined. Thus, polypropylene pipes can be welded without first turning off the water supply through them.
Before starting welding work on plastic products, it is necessary to carry out a number of mandatory checks:
- Make sure that the filler rod will be delivered to the extruder sleeve in a straight line. Sometimes, when there is strong roughness, the rod begins to move along a helical path, and this negatively affects the functioning of the screw crushing mechanism and often leads to the appearance of granulate of heterogeneous composition.
- Checking the optimal heating temperature of the rod, which must be brought to a state of viscous fluidity before feeding. When checking, the manufacturer of the materials must be taken into account, since the melting temperature range of different brands of plastic may differ.
- Checking the reliability of pressing the welding nozzle to the surfaces being joined. This is especially true for products with complex shapes. To prevent this problem, manufacturers equip their welding extruders with a set of replaceable nozzles.
- Checking the possibility of melting materials using a hot air stream coming from a thermal heater, without using a filler rod. The need for this arises when there is no accurate information about the material of the products that are planned to be connected by an extruder.
To choose the most suitable device model, you need to take into account a number of characteristics:
- bar diameter range;
- Availability of replacement devices;
- thickness of connected products;
- ease of setting process parameters;
- productivity per unit of time.
Many manufacturers ship extruders with proprietary filler consumables, additionally specifying that the consumables must be specified by the tool manufacturer to create a reliable connection.
In principle, you can always consider making an extruder for home use with your own hands. As a basis for it, an ordinary industrial hair dryer , to which a screw drive is connected, and then the design is modified to give both units a compact appearance.
In some cases, the screw can be replaced with a plunger drive, but this option cannot be considered reliable. Such a homemade extruder for welding can behave differently with landing rods due to the fact that they can be made of different materials.
It is best to use a commutator type motor as a drive, since it is more stable with constant changes in torque values.
manual extruders from the following manufacturers for welding work
- Munsch (Germany). Among the features of the units of this manufacturer, it is worth noting the convenient fastening of working units, which makes them repairable, the ability to use filler material of any size, the presence of a separate heating function, the ability to carry out welding work with an extruder outdoors in the cold season, a complete set of replaceable nozzles, a well-thought-out control system and control. The main advantage is the high level of execution and assembly.
- Leister (Switzerland). The range of this manufacturer includes many varieties of extruders for welding work of various sizes, ranging from small ones with a productivity of up to 0.8-1.2 kg/h to professional ones that can process up to 6 kg per hour of operation. The design of Leister extruders provides a modern control and monitoring system for the working process; the device itself is ergonomic in operation. The quality is not satisfactory.
- Dohle (Germany). The main activity of the company is the production of construction hair dryers. But recently she decided to change her focus towards manual welding extruders. The main distinguishing feature of welding machines produced under the Dohle brand is the use of electric motors from third-party manufacturers. The company can offer the most compact welding extruder with a productivity of 0.5 kg/h, supplied with a hose and a mini compressor.
- Stargun (Italy). Despite the fact that the linear range of extruders is represented by a fairly small number of models, they are all equipped with fairly powerful electric motors and are aimed primarily at professionals. One of the features of extruders is the possibility of local illumination of the welding area.
- Extruders from the Russian company RSE. They are supplied with a filler material supply device and do not differ in functionality from the units offered by the above-mentioned manufacturers.
The cost of a welding extruder can vary and is determined by the functionality and performance of a particular model. If we consider units from Russian manufacturers, then on average they can be purchased for 30–55 thousand rubles. Foreign manufacturers are ready to sell a welding extruder of their own production for no less than 50 thousand rubles.
Plastic pipes, which have recently gained great popularity, are now widely used in a wide variety of facilities. Often the owners themselves decide to change the water supply system to a new one made from this technologically advanced material. But to connect pipe elements, specialized equipment is required.
Quite often, specialists to perform this type of work use a welding extruder, which supports working with products not only from PVC, but also other types of plastic.
However, working with this device requires knowledge of the features of not only the welding machine, but also the materials that are planned to be joined. Not everyone knows that the difference in melting temperatures between different materials can negatively affect the reliability of the joint being created.
Therefore, an extruder cannot always be considered as the most suitable type of tool for welding work.
There are also a number of other important parameters that must be taken into account when choosing an extruder for welding plastic products. Most ordinary users, as a rule, do not have such information, so it is quite understandable why a welding extruder is considered a working tool for professionals.
If you want to weld PVC pipes yourself, it is advisable to do this under the guidance of an experienced specialist and in strict compliance with his instructions for carrying out the work process. Otherwise, everything can end very badly for the owner, even leading to emergency situations at the most unexpected moment.
Source: https://tokar.guru/instrumenty/ruchnoy-ekstruder-dlya-polipropilena-princip-raboty.html
Manual welding extruder - what is it?
Modern industry is characterized by a high rate of development; particular progress has been made in the production of various types of synthetic materials that are in demand in a variety of fields and industries - polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride and many others. Products made from thermoplastic are found almost everywhere - finishing materials, household items, etc. This abundance has led to the emergence of special devices that perform the function of processing various types of plastic - welding extruders.
The manual welding extruder occupies a special position in the modern tool market. The device is designed to perform a strong and reliable connection of products made of polypropylene, propylene, polyethylene and other types of plastics. For greater ease of use, the mechanical device is usually made in the form of a pistol with a handle. There is an upper nozzle on top that provides heating of the working mixture during operation.
The design of the device includes the following components:
- Thermal heater;
- The chamber needed to melt the plastic;
- Extrusion chamber;
- Crushing screw mechanism;
- Engine;
- Feeder;
- Welding nozzle;
- Control system.
When performing work, the connection is carried out in several stages. When heated, the plastic becomes viscous, after which the mass is applied to the joining surfaces. After this, it will take some time for the resulting weld to cool down.
Manufacturers present two types of manual extruder models for the buyer to choose from. The devices differ in the type of raw material used - granules or rods. The performance of both types of devices is the same.
Operating principle of the rod device
Before starting work, it is necessary to fill the device with a filler rod, which must be made of the same material as the elements being welded. It is passed into the receiving sleeve located on the front panel. The rod is threaded so that its free end falls into the capture zone of the auger. Turning on the electric motor activates two processes:
- Exposure to a concentrated jet of hot air ensures heating of the filler rod;
- After a certain period of time, determined by a special sensor, the rod is fed into the grinding zone.
Then, under the influence of a rotating auger, the rod begins to crush, gradually turning into a granular mass. Melting, it moves further, where the granulate becomes homogeneous. The pressure exerted by the screw leads to the movement of the mass into the welding zone and further entry into the welding nozzle. The next stage is pressing to the surface of the products being welded.
As a result of pressure, the mixture is squeezed out. Careful and precise work results in a uniform strip. Depending on the nozzle configuration, its width may vary. The external temperature is significantly lower than that created by the thermostat. Thanks to this, the filler rod instantly hardens. The result is a high-strength weld seam.
The surfaces of the welded products must be cleaned of contamination. Also they must be the same. The following parameters are meant:
- Chemical composition;
- Density;
- Fluidity.
The rod used must also be identical to the material of the parts being processed.
Features of device selection
When choosing a manual extruder, it is recommended to consider the following parameters:
- Productivity level per unit of time;
- Thickness of welded products;
- Convenience of managing basic processes when performing work;
- The device is equipped with additional replaceable accessories;
- Bar diameter range.
Application benefits
The use of the tool ensures the efficiency of welding work, which is performed in a shorter time and has a higher level of quality.
Under the influence of high temperatures, a reliable and durable seam is formed, which is guaranteed to last throughout the entire life of the product. You can work with the device in any position convenient for the user.
In addition, its use provides the ability to weld products of various thicknesses and geometric shapes.
The machine is used for welding various types of plastic, PVC fabrics, films, thermoplastic sheets, plastic pipes, etc. The use of an extruder greatly simplifies the process of local pipeline repair and will allow installation of wiring to be completed in a shorter time. Depending on the model, the additional functions performed by the tools may vary.
Source: http://usanu.ru/stati/38-ruchnoj-svarochnyj-ekstruder-chto-eto-takoe.html
Manual welding extruder. We weld plastic
In the practice of production activities of small enterprises involved in packaging various products, as well as when laying plastic pipes, a tool is needed that can be used to reliably connect materials with a low melting point. The class of such materials is large - these are low-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polypropylene, etc. A manual welding extruder can handle all this work.
Design and operating principle
A manual welding extruder is a thermomechanical device that sequentially carries out two processes - heating a low-melting plastic to a viscous state, and then squeezing the mass onto the surface in the joint area. There, HDPE, PVC and other low-melting plastics solidify, forming a strong weld.
For compactness and ease of use, the equipment in question is usually designed in the form of a pistol with a handle (in which the drive electric motor is mounted) and an upper nozzle for heating the working mixture. The welding extruder consists of the following components:
- Electric motor.
- Feeder.
- Extrusion chamber.
- Crushing screw device.
- Chambers for melting plastic.
- Thermal heater.
- Welding nozzle.
- Control systems.
To operate, the device is pre-filled with a filler rod made of the material that will be used for welding. The process goes as follows. On the top panel of the extruder there is a receiving sleeve with a hole through which the filler rod is passed.
The filling must be such that the free end of the rod falls into the area where it is captured by the auger.
When the electric motor is turned on, two processes occur: heating the filler rod with a concentrated stream of hot air, and - after some time, which is determined by the device sensor - feeding the rod into the grinding zone.
There, a rotating auger crushes the plastic rod, turning it into a granular mass. The latter melts when heated, and, moving further, enters the melting zone. In this zone, the granulate is already mechanically and homogeneous.
Under the influence of pressure from the screw, it passes into the welding zone, enters the welding nozzle and, in the process of pressing against the surface of the products being welded, is squeezed out into a uniform strip, the width of which depends on the configuration of the nozzle.
Since the external temperature is much lower than that created by the thermal heater, the material of the filler rod instantly solidifies, forming a welding seam.
In less compact but more productive extruder models, the filler rod is heated using an external thermal heater, and air is supplied there from a small compressor. There may also be design differences in the method of heating the filler material: sometimes heating is carried out by ring heating elements coaxially placed in the thermal heater body.
The manual welding extruder control system performs the following functions:
- Pre-setting the heating temperature, which is determined by the melting temperature of the plastic (as is known, HDPE melts at 120-130ºC, PVC - at 150-220ºC, and polypropylene - at 170-190ºC).
- Turning on the thermal heater;
- Starting the drive of the auger grinder;
- “Cold start” blocking, when the screw can move still heterogeneous filler material;
- Switching off the thermal heater while the auger is still rotating, which eliminates the adhesion of granulate residues in the welding chamber.
Operating rules and selection of a manual welding extruder model
Before use, it is necessary to fulfill a number of conditions usual for plastic: clean the surface of the products to be joined from external contaminants and avoid working with wet material.
The success of the work also depends on the difference in the melting temperatures of the materials being joined, if they have different chemical compositions.
For example, HDPE with polypropylene can be welded using the method under consideration, since their melting temperature ranges completely or partially overlap. On the contrary, welding HDPE with PVC, and even more so with polypropylene, is problematic or completely impossible.
In such cases, a welding extruder can only be used to join products made from the same materials.
The compactness of the manual welding extruder allows its effective use even without stopping the operation of the connected devices. In particular, when welding polypropylene pipes, it is not necessary to turn off the water supply through them.
A number of mandatory checks are carried out first (especially if the extruder has not been used before):
- Checking the straightness of the feed of the filler rod in the extruder sleeve: with high roughness of the forming rod, the rod can move not in a straight line, but along a helical line, which will worsen the operating conditions of the screw crushing device and lead to the formation of granulates that are not uniform in size.
- Control check of the effectiveness of the heating temperature of the rod to the state of its viscosity: material from different manufacturers may have a different range of melting temperatures.
- Checking the reliability of pressing the welding nozzle to the surfaces being joined, especially if they have a complex configuration. Many models of manual welding extruders are equipped with replaceable nozzles for this purpose.
- Checking the possibility of melting the materials being joined with heat from a thermal heater, without supplying a filler rod. It is carried out in the absence of accurate information about the material of the products connected in this way.
The selection of a suitable manual extruder model is made according to the following parameters:
- By productivity per unit of time;
- For the convenience of managing process parameters;
- According to the thickness of the welded products;
- By equipping the device with replacement devices
- According to the range of rod diameters.
It should be noted that most brands are designed to work with filler material from a specific manufacturer (often the same one that produces extruders).
Theoretically, it is possible to make a household welding extruder with your own hands. To do this, a screw drive is attached to a conventional industrial hair dryer (for example, for grinding feed), and both units are designed in a compact form.
Instead of a screw, a more affordable plunger drive is sometimes installed, but this option is unreliable: it all depends on the homogeneity of the material of the original rod.
The electric motor for the drive is selected as a commutator type, which better tolerates constant changes in torque values.
Welding extruder manufacturers
The most popular devices in this market segment are:
- From the Munsch brand (Germany). Consumer advantages - ease of fastening of all components (which increases maintainability), undemandingness in the size of the filler material, the presence of a separate heating function (useful when using the extruder outdoors in the cold season), a convenient set of replaceable nozzles, and a perfect control and monitoring system. Plus - traditionally high German quality of manufacturing and assembly.
- From the Leister brand (Switzerland). The manufacturer produces a wide range of standard sizes of welding extruders: from small ones, with a productivity of up to 0.81.2 kg/h, to professional ones, designed for processing up to 6 kg/h. The devices are equipped with a modern control and monitoring system for welding progress and are ergonomic to use. The quality is also at a high level. There is a special line of machines for welding linoleum.
- From the Dohle brand (Germany). The company is known as a manufacturer of construction hair dryers, but recently it has been actively positioning itself as a manufacturer of manual welding extruders. Unlike the above brands, it uses purchased electric motors for drive. It produces the smallest extruder with a productivity of only 0.5 kg/h, which is equipped with a hose and a built-in mini-compressor.
- From the Stargun brand (Italy). With a small range of models, the extruders of this company differ in drive power and are designed for use primarily in professional settings. The highlight of the devices is the possibility of local illumination of the welding zone.
- Domestic extruders of the RSE type. They are equipped with a filler material supply drive and include most of the same options that have already been listed above.
Prices for extruders depend on their functionality and performance. On average, the cost of domestic devices ranges from 30,000 to 55,000 rubles, imported ones - from 50,000 rubles. and more.
Source: https://proinstrumentinfo.ru/ruchnoj-svarochnyj-ekstruder-dlya-plastika-pnd-pvh-tsena-svoimi-rukami/
Design and Application of Welding Extruder
The word "extruder" literally means "ejector". This is the name given to a group of devices designed to extrude various semi-liquid masses onto the surface, including polymer (plastic), rubber and others. A rubber extruder is sometimes also called a rubber injection machine.
For what materials is it applicable?
A high-quality welding extruder must have an adjustment unit with mechanical, touch or push-button control, which will allow you to change the heating temperature of the mixture.
The fact is that different plastics melt at different temperatures. It is lowest for HDPE - 120-130 °C (depending on the brand), the highest is for polyvinyl chloride - up to 220 °C. Other popular industrial polymers have a melting point in the range of 170-200 °C.
Only plastics from the group of thermoplastics can be subjected to extrusion welding . Materials from the group of thermosets are not subjected to melting and subsequent reduction; at high temperatures they simply begin to burn.
Manual welding extruder - RSM 001/5 and RSM 001/6 M
A hand-held welding tool - an extruder - today is no longer something unusual or supernatural. Thanks to modern technologies, it has become possible to create such a tool with your own hands.
The extruder is designed to make permanent connections of various plastic products, which are carried out by feeding a molten mass of material into a heated bath formed by the edges of the samples being welded.
This tool is used for the production of containers, sheet products, and repairing damage to plastic structures, for example, soldering car bumpers made of plastic.
The extruder has no weak points, it has a long service life and is easy to operate. Enterprising people purchase semi-finished plastic products and use this tool to make unique designs. One of these projects can be about. A pontoon was used as a base for it.
Performance
Since not all operators can directly and accurately connect power and the amount of work that a tool can perform, the concept of productivity per unit of time is introduced.
This characteristic shows how much molten plastic mass the device can produce per hour. Accordingly, the higher the indicator, the more suitable the device is for professional use for large volumes of work.
Measured in kilograms per hour, it can vary from 0.5 to 3 kg/h.
Have you ever worked with a manual welding extruder?
It happened! It didn’t happen
Technological differences
It is still necessary to highlight several rather important points, in particular this concerns the dry extrusion procedure, which directly depends on the thermal energy released by the device itself, generated during operation.
It also remains possible to involve steam in the process, for which an individual chamber is available. Steam is necessary to increase the wear resistance of equipment. The technology is characterized by high speed of work; the procedure is carried out in only 30 seconds.
A plastic welding machine can perform the following operations with raw materials in such a short period of time:
- grinding;
- dehydration;
- mixing;
- disinfection;
- stabilization;
- increase in volume.
To make your own manual extruder at home, you need to purchase a certain list of parts:
- auger of the required shape;
- electric motor;
- housing for the device;
- feed capacity;
- output capacity;
- vacuum chamber.
To make a tool for welding plastic products with your own hands at home, it is enough to understand the procedure for creating an extruder and its working principle.
Munsch
Germany. It seems to be real, without Chinese assembly. High-quality reliable assembly and materials. High maintainability, which is important for a device of this class - after a breakdown you won’t throw it away, you will be sorry for the money spent. However, a breakdown still has to happen, because everything is thought out to the smallest detail. Most tools have separate heating of the mass and the workpiece, which allows you to work outdoors at low temperatures.
Leister
Switzerland. The company does not advertise where the production is located, but users trust it as long as they are satisfied with the high quality of the tool. A well-known brand in Russia, there are several lines of different capacities. Leister’s “trick” is an advanced system for intelligent control of the extrusion process. Information is displayed on the display, the user has access to a large number of precise settings.
Stargun (Ritmo)
Italy. A worthy competitor to the above devices. Most products are characterized by high power (minimum productivity 2 kg/hour). It has compact dimensions and various amenities such as ergonomic handles, a adjusted center of gravity and illumination of the welding zone.
Weldy
Sub-brand of Leister. Seeing that many wanted something cheaper, the Swiss organized assembly in China, slightly reduced the quality and significantly lowered the price. However, you shouldn’t be afraid of the tool like a pig in a poke: even the Chinese assembly is still ahead of the Russian one, especially since quality control still does not allow frankly defective devices to enter the market.
Source: https://instanko.ru/drugoe/svarochnyj-ekstruder-chto-eto-takoe.html
Features of choosing a manual extruder for polypropylene: device, operating principle, manufacturers - Machine
22.09.2018
Sheet polypropylene is a modern construction material with excellent characteristics. It is used in construction as an insulating material; in addition, it is used to make swimming pools, various containers, ventilation ducts, and is used for finishing individual treatment units.
Welding polypropylene is more reliable than mechanical fastening of sheets and gluing.
Heating to the melting temperature ensures the strength of the joints, the seams are sealed, do not allow water to pass through, and do not deform during operation.
There are several technologies for temperature bonding of sheet polymer, all of which will be described below. For this purpose, special equipment is used; working with it requires certain knowledge.
Properties and types of polypropylene
Composite and monolithic slabs are created from a polymer material, obtained by rolling, which compact the porous structure, give shape, and create a smooth surface. Main characteristics of the sheet:
- high tensile strength, compression, torsion;
- low specific gravity, no more than 0.92 g/cm3;
- small expansion coefficient, maintains structure homogeneity in the temperature range from +80 to -40°C;
- environmental safety, does not emit harmful components;
- chemical neutrality to aggressive environments of acidic and alkaline nature;
- hydrophobicity: the material does not absorb moisture;
- UV resistance;
- dielectricity.
The material is easy to install using fasteners and can be cut, milled, welded, or glued. The sheet is available in three types:
- dense – has a homogeneous structure;
- cellular – loose, has soundproofing properties;
- foamed - used as insulation.
Welding technology
During temperature bonding, the structure of the polymer is not disturbed; the adhesion of the parts being connected occurs due to the process of interdiffusion. Welding polypropylene sheets involves heating the joint to a viscous-flowing state.
When choosing equipment, it is necessary to take into account that when heated slowly at the joints, the material shrinks, and the quality of the seam suffers as a result. The welding temperature depends on the type of tool. For installation of sheets, the polyfuse method is used, when the joints are heated.
Another connection is made using an extruder. You can heat polypropylene with an air gun (hair dryer).
Having the necessary equipment, you can join the sheets with your own hands.
Methods for manual welding of polypropylene sheets
Hair dryer for welding polypropylene
During installation, two tools are used: a welding extruder for polypropylene and a hair dryer. Polypropylene wire or welding rod is placed between the sheets to be welded. It is selected according to the type of material being installed and must correspond to it in terms of the class of material and type of manufacture.
How to check a weld for leaks
To weld polypropylene with a hairdryer, you need a high-power tool; heating is carried out for 5–10 minutes. Before this, it is necessary to prepare the surfaces of the parts to be joined: sand them with fine sandpaper to form uneven surfaces. Then the edge is cut at an angle of 45°.
For continuous laying of the rod, a nozzle is used; a welding hair dryer is usually equipped with them. It doesn’t take long to make them from tin yourself. During the process, the joint heats up to 180°C, so sheets up to 20 mm thick are mounted with a hairdryer for welding polypropylene.
For sheets over 16 mm, extruder welding is applicable; this is a more reliable joining method. The tool heats the sheet up to 270°C; it is equipped with special attachments that are used when installing complex geometric shapes. They need to work quickly so that the sheet does not straighten out.
If there are two nozzles on the unit, it is not recommended to turn on both at once.
Welding polypropylene with an extruder
The principle of operation of the extruder is to heat the rod to a homogeneous consistency, while simultaneously heating the joint and extruding the extruded polypropylene. There are models of extruders where granules can be placed instead of a rod. They are softened in a plasticizer and pressed into the working area. The result is a very high quality and durable seam.
Automatic welding
Welding machines have been created to connect sheets. This welding equipment creates a smooth, diffuse seam by touching the joint with a heating element. An automatic soldering iron is needed for large amounts of work. The temperature is regulated depending on the structure of the sheet; the machine can weld polypropylene sheets with a thickness of 16 mm or more.
Polypropylene sheet welding machine
Bonding polypropylene sheets
Products with uneven surfaces are bonded chemically. This method is rarely used due to the fact that polypropylene is a difficult-to-glue material, it requires a special composition, traditional mixtures for plastic are not suitable, you need to pay attention to this. There are several types of glue:
- thermoactive based on polyphenolic resins or two-component, with a hardener or hardens when heated;
- thermoplastic one-component, the curing temperature must be indicated on the packaging.
What is arc force on a welding inverter?
The second problem with gluing is the preliminary marking of all parts before assembly; any mistake will lead to a large loss of material, and the work will have to start again. Marks are made on the ends of the parts to be joined so that the surface remains clean.
Let's sum it up
Typical welding mistakes that beginners make:
- Wet and dirty joints reduce the quality of the connection; they can get dirty when laid on a flat surface, so this is also cleaned.
- Wrong choice of filler rod; it is important to know the markings of the sheet before purchasing it. Letter symbols indicate the type of polymer: BS (block layer), V (foamed), G (homogenized), M (monolithic), PP (polymer).
- Uneven heating of the working area and the additive; if the rod is soft, it will be difficult to press it between the elements being welded, it will bulge, and it will be easy to pull it out. If the additive is colder than the sheet, wrinkles will form at the seam.
- Low or high speed of adding the additive: at low speed, deposits will form, at high speed, the seam will tighten.
- To check the strength of the connection, the cooled seam is heated with hot air, then all defects become noticeable.
Welding polypropylene sheets Link to main publication
Source: https://regionvtormet.ru/okrashivanie/osobennosti-vybora-ruchnogo-ekstrudera-dlya-polipropilena-ustrojstvo-printsip-raboty-proizvoditeli.html
Welding extruder for polypropylene: what it is, how and where it is used, characteristics
The place of a manual extruder for welding is one of honorable places on the shelves of hardware stores.
His main work is connecting polypropylene blanks and polypropylene parts, creating structures from plastics and objects from dense film, welding plastic sheets, soldering tanks, constructing playground items and the like.
However, this device is not suitable for soldering PVC parts, nor is it suitable for creating pipeline structures. The strength of extruded joints is less than 85 percent, so the pipeline will not be sufficiently sealed.
general information
This device works according to the following system: the heated air mass coming from the extruder nozzles increases the temperature of the gap (ditch or joint) between the connecting parts, making the latter more plastic.
At the same time, a rod fits into the working area of the apparatus. It melts and connects with the disk (also called a screw), forming a homogeneous plastic mass.
The molten polymer mixture comes out through a die tool or welding shoe. The seam is formed when the entire mass cools to room temperature. It's like squeezing ketchup out of a container.
The surfaces that the master connects must be identical to each other. This implies that the constituent elements, material packing density and fluidity of the parts are the same.
The welding rod should also be similar to the elements according to these characteristics.
Kinds
- Screw. In them, the wire for the additive melts in the screw reservoir of the extruder apparatus and is squeezed out through a rod with a helical surface along the axis - the screw. Instead of wire, material in a granular state is also used. It is located in a special compartment, where it combines into a homogeneous molten mass and becomes suitable for serving.
- Screwless.
The rod in these models is heated by electric heaters in the heating section. The rear end of the wire in this embodiment remains solid and pushes the heated viscous material to the area where the seam is formed.
- Combined. They combine screw and screwless types.
Welding extruders are best chosen when you need to weld thick plastic parts.
In this case, connections will be made quickly and almost error-free.
This is because the master does not need to control the condition of the welding cavity, as during welding of metal structures.
In addition, there is no need to properly feed and remove slag. A beginner can easily handle the extruder device in the first hours of practice.
Manual welding extruder: operation diagram
Before connecting the elements, they need to be heated. A hot air gun can be built into the body of the welding extruder for this purpose. It is needed so that the plastic parts are heated by the air flow before the filler material is applied to them.
The heated air mass can come not only from a hot air gun, but also from a compressor unit or an organizational pneumatic network. The filler wire is heated by electric heaters built around the extrusion department.
In older models of extruders, the screw chamber is heated by hot air, which also heats the welding area. Before “reaching welding,” air flows through the compartment with the disk and melts the materials for the additive.
The latter approaches the welding zone through the shoe in a state of a kind of lava.
A manual extruder welding machine is used mainly for soldering low-pressure polyethylene, polypropylene parts and other types of thermal plastics from the first group.
Their melting point and destruction temperature differ by 50 degrees Celsius. This reduces concerns about degradation, since even an overvoltage of 35-45 degrees does not damage the final connection.
The second group of thermal plastics includes polyvinylidene fluoride and polyvinyl chloride. They melt and collapse with a very small temperature difference, so it is important to strictly control the welding thermal regime.
In order for work with the 2nd group of thermoplastics to proceed “as it should,” the screw part must be special: have a special shape so that the mixing of the mass is uniform and the polymer itself does not overheat.
When working with elements made from these materials, the extruder must work in standby mode for a long time or it will not turn off for a long time.
Types of seams
The extruder creates the right connection the first time. Types of seams of manual welding extruder:
- V-view
- X-view
- K-view
- HV view
- Double HV view
- E-view
- F-view
Preparatory stage
The preparation time before extrusion welding differs from that for other types. But, as in other cases, the surfaces of the parts must be cleaned of dirt and dust, otherwise the seam will turn out to be of poor quality.
Plastics also oxidize easily due to exposure to air. The edges should be cleaned no more than twenty minutes before soldering begins.
If you do this earlier, the parts will still have to be cleared again. Do not try to use solvent for cleaning; it may deform the plastic.
Performing welding
If the extruder is not new and you have used it before, remove any remaining additive that you used before from the reservoir.
You need to do this even if you used the same material as this time. If the additive is heated again, its strength will decrease.
Then you need to remove the cold start lock, warm up the device and feed parts to the temperature at which you are going to work, and set the performance settings.
While you cook, maintain the required tilt of the extruder. It will depend on what type of seam you choose. If you've been working for a long time and need a break, place the welding machine on a welding stand.
If the pause is long, reduce the temperature of the device by about 45 degrees. The heating of the additive will stop, but there will be no problems with continuing the process.