American Kuhne Displays New Generation Medical Modular Extruder at the MEDTEC show
With a strong presence in the medical extrusion equipment market, American Kuhne has recently added to their impressive advanced technology extruder product line. The company will be displaying their newest generation medical modular extruder at the MEDTEC show in Stuttgart, Germany. This extruder provides for quick and easy barrel and screw L/D and/or diameter changes allowing for fast product changes for different size tubing applications. The system also enables processors to perform off line clean out of the feed and barrel sections for faster resin change over. This extruder includes the latest AKcess touch screen control system.

American Kuhne offers unique modular extruders that enable barrel and screw “modules” to be changed quickly and easily, at an affordable price. First, for applications that are very sensitive to contamination and/or resin changes, the ability to easily separate the screw and barrel from a machine and replace it with a clean “on deck” module can be critical to both product purity and profitability by reducing changeover time between runs. Second, for processors that run a wide range of product sizes and throughput, the ability to change the extruder size by quickly switching to a different diameter and/or (L/D) length screw and barrel, brings a previously unimaginable level of processing and production scheduling versatility.
New Gearless Extruder Design
At the recent MD&M show in February 2011, in Anaheim, CA, American Kuhne featured a running TPE bump tube extrusion line including their newest generation gearless medical modular extruder. The extruder does not require a gearbox and is ideal for clean room and/or controlled environments. The new Highly flexible and energy efficient extruder design offers clean, quiet, gearless operation. The gearless technology eliminates contamination from drive belt dust and gear oil for the reduced potential of contamination in a clean room environment.
This newest generation modular extruder includes a high torque, low speed; synchronous AC motor with integral thrust bearing that directly drives the screw.  The combination of the permanent magnet motor and elimination of the gearbox increase the machine’s energy efficiency by at least 10%, and is extremely quiet in operation.