Manufacturers will now be able to gain higher speed data on raw material consumption during extrusion following the unveiling by Maguire Products Inc of an advanced version of the commercially successful LineMaster yield control system.

The new LineMasterAC (for advanced control) system, which combines the dosing precision of the Maguire weigh scale blender (WSB) used in standard LineMaster systems with the split-second feedback of material-consumption data provided by a loss-in-weight (LIW) hopper, retrieves data at the rate of one update every half a second, the company said in a text.
Company president Steve Maguire said the high-speed responsiveness of the LineMaster AC system made the company’s low-cost yield control applicable even in extrusion lines where there were frequent ramp-down/ramp-up cycles such as for film roll changeovers or where inconsistencies in the extrusion rate posed especially great problems such as in coextrusion.
“Until now processors with such operations have had to settle for far more cumbersome and costly yield control systems based on LIW blenders.  For example, these conventional systems require separate controllers for an LIW blender and an LIW hopper.”
The new system is only marginally more expensive than the standard LineMaster yield control, which is priced at more than 50 per cent less than systems available from other suppliers, according to Maguire.
LineMaster yield control centres on a gain-in-weight blender, the Maguire WSB, which provides precise control over batch formulation by sequentially dispensing ingredients in targeted recipe proportions, from separate bins into a weigh chamber. In the LineMaster AC system, the blender batch is fed into an LIW hopper mounted at the extruder throat.
The load cell in the hopper provides updates on material consumption at the rate of every half-second to the WSB, which is mounted either atop the hopper or on a floor stand. Loaded in the WSB controller is the LineMaster yield control software, which regulates extruder and haul-off speeds in accordance with input on raw material consumption.
The LIW hopper initially available for the advance system is the model XC-LIW 10-unit with 10 kg capacity.
“We expect to have three different hopper sizes, serving throughputs up to 2,270 kg per hour,” said Maguire’s vice president of sales and marketing, B Patrick Smith.