EssilorLuxottica installs second Elnik MIM3000
Elnik Systems, LLC, Pineville, North Carolina, USA, has announced that EssilorLuxottica’s Frame MIM department in Thailand has successfully installed its second MIM3000 series furnace.
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Elnik’s MIM3000 sintering furnace can process any metal with any binder in a single-step debinding and sintering cycle, without moving the parts. This is accomplished through a gas-tight refractory metal retort and gas management system.
The gas management system consists of mass flow controllers for the retort and hot zone, and a partial pressure valve at the inlet of a specially designed and modified dry vacuum pump. Different flows of gases into the hot zone and retort minimise binder material sticking to the cold walls of the furnace. The retort has gas plenums on each side with a hole pattern to allow the heated gas flows evenly across each shelf in the retort.
ACCU-Temp is a linearisation technique that allows each of the six zones within the furnace to operate within ±1 °C of the actual temperature inside the retort. Wire-certified thermocouples with different calibration points are used, and any calibration differences are corrected through the proprietary linearisation programme. This enables users to achieve higher MIM material densities by programming sintering temperatures closer to the melting point, while reducing the risk of overheating and part distortion.
