New auto pressing machines comparison

[klikli_ska]

Hello folks!

How are you?

I hope this holidays were good to everyone and you could spend nice time with family and friends.

Beginning this 2018, we would like to start a topic about new auto pressing machines experiences and opinions. I'm talking about WarmTone (Canada), Newbilt Classic (Germany) and Pheenix Alpha AD12 (Sweden). I don't know if there's another new project.

I would like to discuss about everything you could know: from availability of spare parts for them to operational opinions, experiences, pros and cons, value for money, etc. Everything is welcome!!

Thanks in advance and take care, mates!!

Best wishes,

Kike

[Aussie0zborn]

Don't forget the AD12 made by Irmler, Germany.

[klikli_ska]

Hi!

I didn't know it...do you have any video, picture or website link where it can be seen?

Thanks for the update, Aussie!

K.

[Aussie0zborn]

I don't think anybody has experience with all these machines to be able to make the comparison you're looking for.

I would think anyone making new machines will also supply parts.

So now there a four companies making Toolex AD12 clones, while the fifth has generally stuck to an American design.

In any case, it's unlikely someone who buys brand "X" is going to tell you they bought the wrong machine.

Best to do your due diligence and find the supplier that is right for you.

[klikli_ska]

Hello!

Thanks for your reply. More than a competitive comparison or spare parts supplier, I'm looking more for a "description" or "knowledge" topic. I'm not looking for "the best pressing machine in the world" but experienced people who maybe had worked with this new machines and could talk about pros and cons between 3 or 4 column press; or differences on the automatic arms for labels, putting out records; extruder heating by steam or electricity...

I don't know if I'm explaining well, sorry...My english and expression capacity is very limited...

Thanks anyway for all your advices!

Kind regards,

K.

[peorag]

Hello,

The AD12 from Pheenix Alpha is the original Toolex Alpha AD12 machine, slightly modernized with new controller, new valves, new sensors etc. Pheenix Alpha acquired all assets from Toolex Alpha in 2006, including parts, tools, drawings and so on.
Unfortunately we haven’t had the time to update our website , the good thing is that it is due to high production pressure and focus on customer satisfaction.
Please check out the website of one of our customers for videos of the Pheenix Alpha AD12.
https://www.deepgrooves.eu/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWCS2K8zlWE

for the history watch the video from Makingvinyl 2017, start at 3:45 .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm6xqL4UAtY

Best regards
Per-Olof Ragnerius

[salnikov]

Hello Kiki.

Maybe not only looking at the quality of the machines, but also the reliability and the seriousness of the manufacturers about the after sales service ....
Pheenix Alpha looks very good on that side.
Many of my clients have bought a new Toolex and are very happy with it!
It seems correct to say that it is in the old cooking pots that we make the best dishes!

[vondeu]

I totally agree with Salnikov,

I mean, every machine has his pro’s and his con’s depending on: cycle-time, maintance, and the way you can experiment with different colours etc etc.

But for me is a well based business relationship and a fast response on urgent questions is the most important in starting a new pressing plant.

Do your research and plan a trip to more than one of todays builders/designers of record presses. Base your choice on the technical and practical side, but most important base your choice on the feeling that you have after talking with the builders and sellers of the company.

Cheers,

T.

[untitledthe]

How about the induction press from Italy? Is it taken in production? Heard there is being worked on a competitor..!

[Aussie0zborn]

The Italian induction heated press appears to have been abandoned. Apparently their open day and demonstration was not successful.

As for the difference between 3-column and 4-column press, there are a few advantages offered by the 3-columns design. Firstly, maximum parallelity of the moulds for less TTV of the record.

The Toolex design that uses arms that swivel is a more reliable method than something that slides - compare a door on hinges and a sliding door on tracks. Which one lasts longer?

Another benefit of the Toolex design is its speed and smaller footprint. You don’t have to step inside the machine’s foootprint to change stampers. Moulds that swing out make stamper changes fast and easy. The press has only a couple of inches of daylight so already it’s faster to open and close than a press that has 12” of daylight and uses less energy so it makes it “greener” and more cost efficient. Ofcourse anyone who cares about “green” should stick to downloading music as records are not “green” at all.

Also, the Toolex design has a lot
of overlap between the robotic arms. With your own PLC controller, you can create more overlap. One plant that has done that has a 17sec cycle time rather than the standard 22sec. The Toolex AD12 is a proven design, proven over 45 years of non-stop use. The current refinements can only give you the best of the best.

There’s a reason that four companies are making the Toolex 3-column automatic press while only one is making a typically American 4-column automatic press but at the end of the day, they all press records automatically. Unlike the Toolex design, the North American auto press can be run in semi-automatic mode for manual operation. This is handy for making splatter vinyl and picture discs but I suspect the operator will be standing within the footprint of the machine. Another benefit appears to be that the loading and unloading system doesn’t need to be changed when changing moulds for different sized records making changeover a lot faster. A user of older American 4-colum presses claims that changeover from 12” to 7” takes six hours.

One large EU plant has made a small modification to their Toolex extruders to make splatter vinyl records automatically but you’ll never make picture discs on a Toolex auto press. This doesn’t matter to you because you already have semi-automatic presses but may be a concern to a new plant that is interested in specialty records more than in high volume production.

Newbilt ofcourse makes a semi-automatic 4-column book mould press. Stay tuned for a new semi-automatic book mould press using a three column design which is coming to the market soon.

[untitledthe]

Recordpress by a Italien injection moulding manufracturer:

[Aussie0zborn]

Recordpress by a Italien injection moulding manufracturer

That press was open for about 25 seconds between cycles - that’s more time than the Viryl Tech and Pheenix Alpha presses take to make one record. They will probably work on that before going to market.

[Voxster1965]

Is this still induction heating (Ennebi)?

[untitledthe]

Is this still induction heating (Ennebi)?

This is not Ennebi, no.

[untitledthe]

If this wasnt supposed to be made public feel free to take it down, admins.

[llaryllama]

Hi, nice to meet y'all.

I operate a WarmTone in daily production and have had experience with Toolex Alpha and SMT presses in other plants. I have never tried the Pheenix Alpha or Newbilt hands on so I can't comment on their mechanical operation. As you will tell I'm kind of a WT fanboy.

I will try to give as much information as I can from both the operator's and business owner's point of view, because sometimes these can be at odds with each other and it's up to you to decide what is important. I have broken down the points into separate decision factors that I think you should consider when buying one of these new presses.

1. customer service: IMHO this is the most important factor that trumps everything else. There is no point having an amazing high tech press when it takes 2 weeks to get an answer if something breaks. I want to be clear I have zero knowledge or experience with Pheenix Alpha or Newbilt on after-sales, but when we went shopping for new presses the initial exchanges with Newbilt and Pheenix basically killed the deals for us. Pheenix has almost zero web presence and Newbilt wanted us to go through a local sales agent who obviously had a lot less experience pressing vinyl than we did. When we sent emails to Viryl they replied within 10 minutes and always had detailed information to offer. In our minds the sale was 99% confirmed before we even went to visit them. Customer service and tech support use an online ticket system that is fast and efficient. Contact and visit each company and choose one that gives you a good feeling about what you are getting into.

2. geography: Newbilt and Pheenix are more Euro-centric, maybe you would get better service from them within their region. Hopefully someone with experience there can chime in. Viryl is obviously more North American biased but they seem to be somewhat more international than the other two. We are based in a small country with no other pressing plants so this was a big deal for us.

3. price: we never got a formal quote for a Pheenix machine but the Newbilt duplex system would have been cheaper than a WarmTone. You could just about built an entire bare bones plant with a Newbilt and ancillary equipment for the price of a WarmTone with no moulds or boiler or anything else.

4. versatility: obviously the Newbilt is going to be more flexible with making things like picture discs, splatter vinyl etc. which the WarmTone can't do. Aussie above mentioned that the WT can be run in semi auto mode, but actually it can't. That might be a deal breaker for some. Viryl now has a semi auto LiteTone which we have decided to buy so I can report back in a few months. Mould changeovers on the WT are very fast, that's something to consider if you want to open a single press operation. 7" conversion on the WT needs some work out of the box, we have done some small modifications to improve aspects of this. If you mainly press 7" I don't know if the WT is suitable but it works fine for occasional 7" orders.

5. mould changeover: can be done in about 10 minutes with an experienced operator and a helper if you leave the quick connect hoses hooked up. The whole trimmer module is on wheels and opens up out of the way so you can get right inside the press chassis. You can use the press to get the upper stamper in place then the lower stamper is a breeze. 7" conversion or back again with two experienced engineers can be done in about an hour. One person works on the premould while the other works on the trimmer. This is a big big plus for us since we don't have the luxury of one press per format.

6. stamper changeover: takes 3 minutes max on a WarmTone. You release the stamper ring and pull out the bushing, put in a new stamper and do the reverse. Almost impossible to screw up and very nice and efficient. Another big plus for short run operators.

7. safety: all machines seem to be a big improvement on the old machines. The Pheenix machine seems to have a similar safety cage setup to the WarmTone and I think these are safer for operators. I know Viryl has put a lot of emphasis on safety with the WT with solenoid locks, hardware and software interlocks etc. It's almost impossible to get injured unless you're really dumb. I know this is not priority #1 for some business owners but as an operator I sure appreciate it.

8. reliability & service: I guess it's hard to call reliability for any of these new machines since none of them have been running long enough. The WT comes with a very comprehensive operator's manual and almost all the automation and electrical parts are available off the shelf. There is not a single part in there we couldn't easily replace on our own. Cycle times are a rabbit hole I don't want to jump down here, but I would guess the Pheenix and WT are probably on a par with each other, while Newbilts look slowww. For an inexperienced operator these machines will all be faster than an old press without any PLC control, but for a very very experienced operator you might actually be able to squeeze slightly fast cycle times out of the older hardware. For plants like ours that's a pointless consideration because we prefer to run slightly longer cycles to squeeze out extra sound quality and changeover time is more important than production speed. For the really huge plants pumping out tens of millions of records per year the difference between 28 and 22 seconds per cycle is enormous, but that's partly why I think those big plants suck. If you are at that kind of purchasing level you shouldn't be doing your research in forums so let's just say that Pheenix and Viryl are both fast enough.

9. cycle times, process etc: Viryl has very nice internet connected software called ADAPT that lets you monitor your presses remotely, and they can also diagnose and fix problems for you directly. The HMI design is well laid out and just makes it easier to do your job as an operator. The extruder is able to work with basically any good PVC compounds which is something people overlook when building a plant. PVC compounds are extremely variable and you can't press records without compound that works with your machine. Once you get your settings for different colors and manufacturers dialed in you can save them in the HMI and specify the compound for each job. Saves a lot of time and wasted compound. I assume that Newbilt and Pheenix are also running computer controlled extruders on the new machines for similar benefits, but maybe someone can confirm that.

Something I am curious about for any Pheenix Alpha owners, there's only one video I can find of the machine operating and I noticed they were stacking up hundreds of records with no cooling plates between them. The WT has an automated cooling plate stacker and you can specify how many records per cooling plate, does the WD12 have any option like that?

General comment: I noticed there are people buying WarmTones, Newbilts etc. with almost zero experience of engineering or vinyl and expecting to be able to take orders from day one. Part of this might be the fault of sales in both companies making things sound too easy. Please understand that these are not laser copiers, they are complicated industrial machines and even an experienced engineer will take months getting the process right in a new plant. You will not get anywhere near the claimed cycle times at first. Someone with no mechanical understanding basically has a few years ahead of them to become truly experienced.

If you are thinking about buying one of these machines, go to their factory and do a hands on demo. Ask to do a mould change and a few stamper changes yourself. Press a few hundred records. Get a feel for how easy they are going to be in real world production. Don't rely on some idiot in a web forum

Any other questions about the WT let me know and I'll try to help.

[Aussie0zborn]

That's a good write-up. To answer your question regarding spacer discs, as far as I know Toolex never did have such an option but perhaps others can chime in. Edit: Pheenix offers it as an option and the Germans make a spacer disc stacker for AD12, too. If everything is in order, you shouldn't really need them...

[untitledthe]

Isnt Pheenix Alpha working on that he mentioned here somewhere?

[llaryllama]

That's a good write-up...

You can turn the cooling plates off and I forgot to mention something else related. The WT comes by default with 2 output stacks and there are a few useful things you can do with that in production. If you make a lot of very short runs you can stack the first job on one side then let it cool in the machine while you stack your next job on the other side. Otherwise the normal method of operation is to let it stack on alternate spindles and if you need to take out records for inspection /packing or mess about with the spindles the machine will keep running on the other spindle.

Will be great to hear owners of other machines chime in.. we are in the market for a dedicated 7" machine now and interested how the different 7" options stack up.

[tragwag]

this is a great thread! thanks for the first hand info everyone.
I'm a lathe cut guy, but I'm always interested and trying to keep up with the new press stuff, very much appreciate the perspective here!