Alan and Francine Petrucci say they are actively involved in standardizing system components to make all-electric unscrewing a more affordable reality.

A fast, accurate, and versatile servomotored unscrewing system is becoming a more cost-effective alternative.

In July 2005, IMM ran a story on how a truly “revolutionary,” patent-pending, all-electric core rotation technology trademarked “PERC” (Programmable Electric Rotating Core) by its developer, B A Die Mold Inc. (Aurora, IL), had allowed a customer to achieve unscrewing times of less than a second in the production of tamper-evident bottle caps in multicavity tooling (see immnet.com/product_news/2005/July/1909 for details). To get an update on the technology and its application, we recently chatted with Alan Petrucci, B A Die Mold’s principal, and his daughter, Francine Petrucci, president. Here’s what they had to say:

IMM: What have users found to be the biggest benefits provided by your PERC system?

Alan: For one thing, PERC makes unscrewing molds more compact. There’s no huge rack and cylinder, so now a molder’s choice of molding machines is wide open.

Francine: Unscrewing molds could be run in smaller-tonnage presses.

Alan: PERC also provides for better accuracy and for using an unlimited number of threads. We’ve built molds with 32 turns of the threads.

Francine: That makes part designers jump for joy—more threads means more turns without having to use larger rack-and-cylinder systems.

Alan: Then there’s PERC’s speed and accuracy. It can match and exceed the speed of rack-and-cylinder systems. Accuracy speaks for itself. The beauty is that if you want to change the position of the cores, you just have to go to the control cabinet and change the program instead of revising the rack and cylinder.

Francine: One more thing—cleanliness. Cleanliness is a given.

IMM: Have the patents for your PERC system been issued yet?

Francine: This has got to be the longest patent application in the history of manufacturing.

Alan and Francine Petrucci say they are actively involved in standardizing system components to make all-electric unscrewing a more affordable reality.

Alan: My attorney keeps amending it, but we’re very close. We’ve been more involved recently in formalizing the system’s standardization to bring the system’s cost down.

IMM: Is all-electric core rotation much more expensive than hydraulic core rotation?

Alan: Actually, the cost of PERC in terms of its components in a mold is very competitive with hydraulic systems. The power supply and the control cabinet add to the cost. A standardized controller for PERC molds can be very cost effective—a customer’s additional PERC molds could be programmed into a single controller. Standardization will definitely bring the cost down.

Francine: Everything’s cost-driven these days. But we’ve run into customers who say, “My boss wants PERC. He wants the latest technology.” The percentage of how much more PERC costs really depends on the mold.

IMM: How expensive is it?

Francine: I’d say the average increase in cost has typically been anywhere from $7000-$11,000 including the control cabinet, motors, and cables. The control cabinet’s a one-time buy and is about 80% of that. The servomotors cost about $1000-$1500. Actually, a rep that sources control cabinets is coming in tomorrow morning to present some cost-saving solutions for PERC.

IMM: Have you encountered any inherent limitations in the technology itself?

Francine: We haven’t run into any. We’ve even built PERC molds with more than one motor. We just finished a project replacing hydraulic unscrewing molds involving two multicavity molds with two sets of different-sized threads inside—two different rotating cores in each cavity—with each mold run off a single motor. PERC improved the cycle times by 30-40% vs. hydraulic unscrewing. We were able to get the molds into smaller presses as well.

IMM: Do you still build hydraulic unscrewing molds?

Francine: We probably do more hydraulic unscrewing molds than PERC molds. We’ll advise customers when they don’t need PERC with their applications.

Alan: What PERC brings to the table is its programmability—it allows customers to vary and profile the rpms while it’s unscrewing. It provides true programmable, servomotored capabilities. Users can start slow, speed up, and reset cores as fast as possible—you can’t do that with a hydraulic system.

And the positioning is deadly accurate—just like a CNC machine—and you can stop it in-cycle to accommodate a pass-through core. It’s very versatile.

IMM: Have you formed any strategic alliances with suppliers of all-electric molding machines?

Alan: Actually, so far we have one customer using PERC systems with all-electric machines in a cleanroom medical application. The rest are in hydraulics.

Francine: We have spoken with molding machine manufacturers, proposing PERC as an add-on to their machines. They could offer the PERC system control programmed into their machine controller as an option.

IMM: What’s the best reason for using PERC?

Francine: Cycle times. With the spectacular cycle-time achievements PERC provides, it quickly pays for itself.

Alan: It doesn’t slow anything down. When we build a mold we make sure the cycle is optimized.

Francine: When it pays for itself in X number of months, they’re a hero.

Fast Facts: B A Die Mold • 40-year anniversary coming in 2008 • 16,000-ft² facility • About $2.5 million in sales • Generally builds molds up to 2 tons in all popular tool and stainless steels with tolerances down to ±.0002 inch • 17 employees, three-quarters of whom are “definitely making something,” according to Alan Petrucci • Works five to six days/week, 10 hr/day—CNC machines run lights-out • Does sampling and some short production runs on four molding machines, 50-200 tons

Contact information B A Die Mold Inc. (630) 978-4747 | www.badiemold.com