Author Archives: Steve Morgan

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Why Accurate Chiller Sizing Matters

Posted on by Steve Morgan
Geiger handling logo
11
Sep

A chiller that’s slightly too small for the job doesn’t usually fail outright. It just runs harder than it should, all the time, and the cost of that gets absorbed quietly into cycle time, part quality, and your energy bill.

Here’s how an undersized chiller actually affects your process, and what to check if you suspect yours might be under-specified.

Why Chiller Sizing Gets Overlooked

Chillers are often specified early in a project, sometimes before the full tooling and production plan is finalised. A chiller sized for one job can end up serving several moulds over its lifetime, some far more demanding than the original spec accounted for.

Because a chiller rarely fails completely when it’s undersized, the problem tends to hide in plain sight. It just works harder, for longer, without ever throwing an obvious fault.

How It Actually Affects Your Process

1. Longer Cycle Times

If the chiller can’t remove heat from the mould fast enough, cooling time has to stretch to compensate. This adds seconds to every single cycle, which adds up to a significant amount of lost output over a full production run.

2. Inconsistent Mould Temperature

An undersized chiller struggles most under peak load, which means mould temperature can drift during long runs even if it looked fine when the process was first set up. This is a similar pattern to what we’ve covered in common causes of inconsistent moulded parts — a slow drift that’s easy to miss until it shows up in the finished product.

3. Warping and Dimensional Issues

Uneven or insufficient cooling changes how a part shrinks as it solidifies. This often shows up as warping, sink marks, or dimensions that fall outside tolerance, especially on parts with thicker sections that need more heat removed to cool evenly.

4. Higher Running Costs

A chiller working constantly at or near its limit draws more power than one sized correctly for the load. Over a year of continuous running, that difference in energy use adds up. It also puts extra wear on the compressor from running flat out.

5. Shortened Equipment Life

Compressors and pumps designed to cycle on and off wear differently to ones running continuously under strain. An undersized chiller often needs replacing sooner than one properly matched to the load it’s cooling.

How to Check If Yours Is Undersized

Start by comparing your chiller’s rated cooling capacity against the actual heat load of the tools it’s running. This means mould size, material type, wall thickness, and cycle rate, not just the tonnage of the moulding machine itself.

Watch for cycle times that have crept up over time without a clear cause. Also watch mould temperature readings that vary more than expected across a long run. Both are common signs the chiller is being asked to do more than it’s rated for.

Getting the Sizing Right

Chiller sizing depends on more than machine tonnage. It needs to account for the specific tools being run, ambient conditions, and how much headroom you want for future tooling. Our range of chillers is specified against your actual production requirements, not a generic match to machine size.

Get in Touch

If you suspect your chiller might be undersized, or cycle times have been creeping up without an obvious cause, we’re happy to take a look at the numbers with you.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd
Phone: 01782 630555
Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk
Web: geigerhandling.co.uk

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Maximize Energy Efficiency with Compressed Air Drying

Posted on by Steve Morgan
Geiger handling logo
07
Sep

Drying is one of the more energy-hungry stages of the injection moulding process, and it’s not always obvious how much a more efficient dryer would actually save until you put real numbers against it.

qip GmbH, one of our material drying partners, has put together a savings calculator that does exactly that. It’s a genuinely useful five-minute exercise if you’re weighing up whether a compressed air dryer makes sense for your process.

Why Compressed Air Drying Is Different

Most conventional dryers use refrigeration or desiccant regeneration to remove moisture from the air before it reaches the material. Both work, but both carry a real energy cost, running more or less continuously to keep drying air at the right dew point.

qip’s dryers take a different approach. They use compressed air already available on most factory floors, rather than generating dried air from scratch. Their ID-BD and CD-TD series are built for this, with hopper volumes from small desktop units up to 170 litres. They’re designed to mount directly onto the production machine.

What the Calculator Actually Estimates

The qip savings calculator lets you enter details about your current setup. It then estimates the potential difference a compressed air dryer could make. Go in with your own figures to hand — current dryer type, running hours, and material throughput — so the result reflects your actual process, not a generic average.

The value here isn’t treating the output as a guaranteed number. It’s getting a realistic starting point for whether the conversation is worth having at all.

Who This Is Worth Looking At For

If you’re running a conventional desiccant or refrigerant dryer continuously, this is worth five minutes of your time. That’s especially true on smaller machines or lower throughput lines. It’s also worth a look if you’ve been searching for ways to cut energy costs more broadly. Drying is often a bigger contributor to a factory’s energy bill than people expect.

This ties into a point we’ve made before about material handling being one of the foundational stages that shapes both quality and cost further down the line. Drying efficiency is very much part of that picture.

Get in Touch

If you run the numbers and want to talk through whether a compressed air dryer is a good fit for your setup, we’re happy to help. We work with qip as one of our material drying partners and can advise on what would actually suit your process.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd
Phone: 01782 630555
Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk
Web: geigerhandling.co.uk

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Quality Matters: How to Choose Equipment Effectively

Posted on by Steve Morgan
Geiger handling logo
03
Sep

It’s tempting to judge a piece of equipment by its price tag, or by where it was made. Neither tells you as much as people assume. Expensive equipment can fail early, and competitively priced equipment can run reliably for years. The price and the country of manufacture were rarely the actual reason either way.

Here’s what we think actually determines whether equipment is worth buying, based on what we’ve seen across the range we supply.

Why Price and Origin Are Poor Shortcuts

The plastics equipment market has changed a lot over the last twenty years. Manufacturing that used to sit almost entirely with Swiss, German and Italian suppliers has shifted. Some of that ground has moved to producers in China and elsewhere in Asia, alongside genuine quality improvements.

The automotive industry has gone through the same shift, and it’s a useful reference point. Components once dismissed on origin alone are now standard in vehicles built to strict safety and reliability requirements. Origin stopped being a reliable tell for quality a while ago, in that industry and in ours.

Price works the same way. A higher price doesn’t guarantee better engineering, and a lower price doesn’t guarantee corners have been cut. It depends entirely on the specific manufacturer, not the price bracket or the country stamped on the nameplate.

What Actually Determines Quality

1. Manufacturing Consistency

The real question isn’t what a product costs, but whether it’s made to a consistent standard, run after run. A manufacturer with tight tolerances and proper quality control produces reliable equipment regardless of price point. One without those controls can produce inconsistent results even at a premium price.

2. Track Record on Similar Equipment

Performance over time matters more than a spec sheet. We look at how equipment actually performs in the field before representing it, not just how it’s marketed. This is why some of our supplier relationships go back many years, and why we’ve moved on from others when we’ve needed to, rather than sticking with a brand purely on reputation or history.

3. Whether the Supplier Backs the Product

This is often the real difference between a good purchase and a costly one. Equipment backed by proper technical support, available spares, and a reliable supplier who stands behind it holds up a lot better over time than equipment bought purely on price with no support behind it.

4. Fit for the Application

Even well made equipment can be the wrong choice if it’s not suited to the specific application it’s being used for. Getting this match right often matters more than the brand or the price point attached to it.

How We Approach This

Some of our supplier relationships go back decades, built on the kind of trust that only comes from years of working together and standing behind what’s supplied. Where that partnership still delivers the right equipment at the right price, we stay with it. 

We’ve brought in ranges like FGS end of arm tooling because we assessed them properly and found them genuinely competitive, not because they were the cheapest option going, but because of their robust quality. 

Questions Worth Asking, Regardless of Price

  • Has this equipment got a genuine track record, or is it unproven?
  • Is the supplier able to back it with support and spare parts?
  • Is it actually suited to the application, not just the budget?
  • Are you buying from someone who’s assessed it properly, or just passing on the lowest quote?

Get in Touch

If you’re weighing up equipment or parts and want an honest view on what’s actually a good fit, we’re happy to talk it through, whatever the price point.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd
Phone: 01782 630555
Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk
Web: geigerhandling.co.uk

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How a Central Conveying System Works

Posted on by Steve Morgan
Feed system
27
Aug

If you’re running several machines on individual loaders, a central conveying system is probably a familiar idea, even if you haven’t looked into it properly yet. Here’s how one actually works, and where it tends to make the biggest difference.

What a Central Conveying System Actually Does

Instead of each machine having its own loader and its own material source, a central system does it differently. Material moves from one or more bulk storage points, through a shared network of lines, to multiple machines at once.

One vacuum pump, or a small number of them, does the work that would otherwise need a separate loader per machine. A manifold routes material to each drop point, with selection valves sending the right material to the right machine.

The Basic Flow

  • Bulk storage. Material sits in silos, bulk bags, or gaylords rather than smaller day-hoppers at each machine.
  • Central pump station. One or more vacuum pumps draw material through the line network on demand.
  • Manifold and valves. Material is routed to the correct machine or hopper, often switching between multiple material types across the system.
  • Drying, where needed. Material can be dried centrally before distribution, or at the point of use, depending on how the system’s designed.
  • Delivery to the press. Material arrives at each machine’s hopper, topped up automatically as it’s consumed.

Where It Makes the Biggest Difference

Shops running six or more machines tend to see the clearest return. Fewer individual loaders means less kit to maintain. Bulk buying material also gets much easier once storage isn’t limited to what fits next to each press.

It cuts manual handling too. Bags aren’t cut open and tipped by hand at every machine, which reduces labour and one of the most common sources of contamination on a busy shop floor.

What to Check Before Switching

A central system costs more upfront than a set of individual loaders. It needs proper planning around line runs, how often materials change over, and how many different materials share the same network. Get the design wrong, and you risk the same problems individual loaders have, just on a bigger scale — including blockages, if line runs are too long or badly routed.

Our conveying systems range is designed and specified around your actual shop floor layout, rather than a generic setup.

Get in Touch

If you’re weighing up whether a central system makes sense for your shop, we’re happy to talk through the numbers properly before you commit to anything.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd
Phone: 01782 630555
Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk
Web: geigerhandling.co.uk

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Common Causes of Inconsistent Moulded Parts

Posted on by Steve Morgan
Geiger handling logo
26
Aug

Same machine. Same settings. Same material, on paper. Yet today’s parts don’t quite match last week’s. This is one of the most frustrating problems in injection moulding, because nothing on the machine has changed.

Here are five common causes of inconsistent moulded parts, and how to track them down.

Why “Nothing Changed” Is Rarely True
The machine is usually the last thing to blame. It’s simply reacting to small changes elsewhere in the process. These changes are easy to miss, since nobody touched a setting.

Consistency depends on several things staying stable at once: material condition, mould temperature, cooling time, and even factory conditions. A shift in any one shows up in the part.

5 Causes of Inconsistent Moulded Parts

  1. Material Moisture Variation
    The most common cause. Inconsistent drying means the material going into the machine changes slightly, batch to batch. A dryer running to a timer, not a confirmed dew point, is a frequent source of this drift.
  2. Regrind Ratio Changes
    An uncontrolled regrind ratio shifts part properties between batches. Reprocessed material often flows differently to fresh material.
  3. Mould Temperature Drift
    A mould running a few degrees off target changes shrinkage, warping, and surface finish. Often caused by a temperature control unit no longer holding its set point, due to scale build-up or an undetected fault.
  4. Inconsistent Cooling Time
    Small cycle time variation changes how long a part cools before ejection. Parts eject at slightly different temperatures, showing up later as dimensional variation.
  5. Ambient Environmental Changes
    Factory temperature and humidity shift with the seasons. A process dialled in during cool, dry weather can behave differently once the factory warms up.

How to Track It Down
Check what actually changed, not what you assume didn’t:

  • Check moisture readings against spec, not just the drying schedule
  • Check mould temperature against its set point, not just power status
  • Review cycle time logs for small drift
  • Compare a “good” batch against a “bad” one using data, not memory

Why It’s Worth Chasing Down
Inconsistent parts cost more than scrap alone. They erode confidence in a trusted process, and often lead to over-adjusting machine settings, which creates new problems on top of the original one.

See the Plastics Technology guide to resin drying if moisture looks like a factor. Also worth reading: our piece on material contamination, a related issue with different root causes.

Get in Touch
If your process has drifted and you can’t pin down why, we’re happy to help. Sometimes it’s a quick check; sometimes it’s worth a site visit.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd
Phone: 01782 630555
Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk

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Why Material Contamination Is Costing You Money

Posted on by Steve Morgan

Contamination is invisible, until it isn’t. A few stray particles of the wrong material rarely show up straight away. They tend to show up three or four shots later, as a defect nobody can quite explain, in a batch that otherwise looked fine.

This article covers where contamination usually comes from. We’ll look at how to spot it early, and what actually helps prevent it.

What Contamination Actually Looks Like
Contamination doesn’t always mean something dramatic. It can be as small as a handful of the wrong pellets mixed into a hopper. It might be a trace of a different colour left in a line from the last run. Or it could be regrind that’s picked up material it shouldn’t have.

The result can be black specks, streaking, weak spots, or parts that fail testing for no obvious reason. By the time it’s visible in a finished part, the actual contamination event may have happened much earlier in the process.

Common Causes We See on Site

  1. Cross-Material Handling
    Using the same scoop, hopper, or storage container for different materials without cleaning it properly in between is one of the most common causes. It sounds obvious written down. But under time pressure on a busy shift, it’s an easy step to skip. A dedicated material feeding and conveying system reduces this risk significantly. Material moves through a closed line, rather than being handled manually at multiple points.
  2. Poor Purging Between Changeovers
    Switching resin type or colour without a proper purge leaves old material behind. It can sit in the barrel, hot runner, or feed throat. The first few shots after a changeover are the riskiest. That’s exactly when contamination is most likely to slip through, unless checks are tightened up during that window.
  3. Contaminated Regrind
    Regrind is a common, legitimate way to cut material costs. But it only works if the granulator stays clean and sticks to a single material where possible. A granulator that’s processed a different resin without a proper clean-out can quietly bring contamination back into an otherwise good batch.
  4. Poor Storage Conditions
    Open or poorly sealed storage containers are vulnerable to airborne dust, debris, or accidental mixing. This is a particular risk in a busy factory where several materials are stored close together. Simple housekeeping around storage often prevents more contamination than any single piece of equipment.

How to Spot It Early
Visual inspection is the first line of defence, but it only catches contamination that’s already visible. Watch for intermittent defects that don’t line up with any machine setting change. This pattern usually points to a material issue rather than a process one.

Keep a simple log of changeovers, regrind batches, and any material substitutions. This makes it much easier to trace a defect back to its actual source, rather than guessing after the fact.

What Actually Helps
Dedicate equipment to specific materials where possible. A single hopper, loader, or granulator that only ever processes one resin removes cross-contamination risk almost entirely.

Build a proper purge routine into every changeover, rather than treating it as optional when time is tight. A short purge is far cheaper than a batch of scrapped parts.

Keep regrind traceable. Know what went into a batch of regrind before it goes back into the process, and keep granulators clean between different material runs.

Store material properly, in sealed containers, clearly labelled, and separated from other resins wherever floor space allows.

Why It Matters
Contamination is a frustrating quality issue. It often looks random until someone traces it back to its source. Every affected batch means scrapped parts and wasted machine time. Sometimes it means a failed quality check, too — one that a five-minute purge or a labelled storage bin could have avoided.

The British Plastics Federation’s overview of the injection moulding process notes that material handling is one of the foundational stages that shapes part quality further down the line. That’s exactly why contamination at this early stage has such an outsized impact.

It’s a similar pattern to what we’ve written about with vacuum loader blockages. The problem rarely announces itself where it starts. It shows up somewhere else, later, once it’s already cost you time and material.

Get in Touch
If contamination has been showing up in your parts and you can’t quite pin down the source, we’re happy to talk it through. Sometimes it’s a quick fix in how material’s being handled; sometimes it’s worth reviewing the equipment itself.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd
Phone: 01782 630555
Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk

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5 Signs Your Hopper Dryer Needs Servicing

Posted on by Steve Morgan
Hopper dryer
21
Aug

A hopper dryer rarely fails all at once. It usually gives you warning signs first, sometimes for weeks, before a real problem shows up in your parts. The trouble is, those early signs are easy to miss or explain away.

This article covers five signs worth watching for, what usually causes them, and what to do about it before a small issue turns into a scrap rate problem.

  1. Parts That Look Fine, Until They Don’t
    Splay marks, silver streaks, or brittle parts that snap more easily than usual are classic signs of a drying problem. The tricky part is that these defects often come and go. A batch looks perfect, then the next one doesn’t, even though nothing on the moulding machine has changed.

This inconsistency is a strong clue. If the machine settings haven’t moved, the material going into it probably has. Our range of polymer dryers is built to keep that variable under control.

  1. The Dryer Is Running Longer Than It Used To
    If your dryer used to hit temperature and dew point in a set time, and now it’s taking noticeably longer to do the same job, something has changed. This is often one of the earliest signs of a dryer struggling, well before it shows up in part quality.

A common cause is a desiccant bed that’s losing capacity, or a heater element that’s no longer performing at full strength. Neither of these announces itself loudly. They just make the dryer work harder for the same result.

  1. Dew Point Isn’t Where It Should Be
    Most process dryers show you a dew point reading. It’s worth actually looking at it, not just trusting that the machine is doing its job because it’s switched on and running.

A dew point that’s drifted higher than your resin’s specification means the air reaching the material isn’t as dry as it should be. This can happen gradually, which is exactly why it’s easy to miss without a regular check. According to Plastics Technology’s guidance on resin drying (https://www.ptonline.com/kc/resin-drying/resin-types), moisture tolerances for common resins are tight, so a small drift in dew point can matter more than it looks like it should.

  1. Inconsistent Airflow or Unusual Noise
    A change in the sound of the blower, or a noticeable drop in airflow through the hopper, usually points to a mechanical issue rather than a process one. Common culprits include a failing blower motor, a blocked filter restricting airflow, or ductwork that’s come loose or developed a leak.

None of these are usually urgent on their own. Left unaddressed, they compound, and the dryer ends up working harder to achieve less.

  1. It’s Been a While Since Anyone Actually Checked It
    This one isn’t a symptom so much as a risk factor. A hopper dryer tends to get treated as a fit-and-forget piece of equipment, quietly running in the background while attention goes to the moulding machine itself. If nobody can remember the last time it was serviced, that’s worth treating as a sign in its own right.

A regular service catches desiccant degradation, seal wear, and sensor drift before they turn into a production issue. It’s a lot cheaper than diagnosing a scrap rate problem after the fact.

What to Do Next:
If any of this sounds familiar, start with the basics. Check the dew point reading against your resin’s specification. Listen to the blower. Note how long a drying cycle is actually taking compared to what it used to be.

If something’s off, it’s worth having it looked at properly rather than waiting for it to show up in your parts. The British Plastics Federation’s overview of the injection moulding process is a useful reference if you want to understand how material preparation fits into the wider process. Read more here: https://www.bpf.co.uk/plastipedia/processes/Injection_Moulding.aspx

Get in Touch
If your hopper dryer is due a service, or you’re not sure whether it is, we’re happy to take a look. A proper check now is a lot less disruptive than a stoppage later.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd
Phone: 01782 630555
Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk

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Why Your Vacuum Loader Keeps Blocking

Posted on by Steve Morgan
Hopper loader
Hopper loader supplied by us https://geigerhandling.co.uk/material-conveying-colouring-products/hopper-loaders/

Is your vacuum loader blocking more than it used to? It’s easy to assume it’s just having a bad day. In our experience, it rarely is. Blockages are usually a symptom of something else going on upstream. Left unchecked, they get worse, not better.

This article covers why vacuum loaders block. We’ll look at the most common causes, how to spot the warning signs early, and what actually helps. That means both quick fixes and longer-term prevention.

What does a Vacuum Loader actually do?

A vacuum loader’s job looks simple on paper. It moves material from its source to the machine hopper, without interruption. The source might be a silo, an octabin, or a gaylord box. Here’s how it works. A vacuum pump draws material through conveying lines. The material passes a filter, which separates air from material. It then drops into the hopper below. When it blocks, that simple job stops. Everything downstream feels it. More information: https://www.bpf.co.uk/plastipedia/processes/Injection_Moulding.aspx

Common Causes We See on Site:

1. Moisture

This is by far the most frequent culprit. Hygroscopic materials — PET, PA (nylon), ABS and others — absorb moisture from the air surprisingly quickly. More information: https://www.ptonline.com/kc/resin-drying/resin-types. This can happen even during transport or short-term storage. If material isn’t dried properly before it reaches the loader, it clumps up. It sticks to the inside of conveying lines instead of flowing freely. Over time, this narrows the passage until it blocks completely. Our range of polymer dryers is built to prevent this at source.

2. Fines and Regrind

A granulator that isn’t producing a consistent particle size causes problems further down the line. The same goes for fines that aren’t properly separated out before reprocessing. Both build up in filters and pipework much faster than whole pellets do. See our granulator range for equipment built to keep particle size consistent.

3. Worn or Undersized Filters

A filter doesn’t announce that it’s struggling. It just restricts airflow more and more, until someone notices a full stoppage. A filter that hasn’t been cleaned in weeks is working far harder than it should. Eventually, it stops keeping up altogether.

4. Conveying Line Design

Sometimes the cause has nothing to do with maintenance. Bends that are too tight, runs that are too long, or pipework that’s the wrong diameter — all of these create natural blockage points. No amount of servicing can fully fix a design issue. At some point, the layout itself needs a proper review.

How to Spot It Before It Becomes a Full Stoppage

The best early warning isn’t a sudden failure. It’s a change in how the system sounds and behaves.

Listen to the loader during normal operation. Watch for a longer load time, a shift in cycle time, or a different sound during conveying. These are usually the first signs, often appearing well before a full blockage.

Check filter condition and pressure drop on a regular schedule. Don’t wait for a problem to surface. A filter working harder than usual is telling you something real and measurable.

What Actually Helps:

Start with the material.

Confirm it’s within the correct moisture spec for the resin before it reaches the vacuum loader. Then check your drying setup is actually hitting that target, not just running for a set time. A dryer running to a timer isn’t the same as one confirmed to hit the right dew point.

Put filters on a proactive cleaning schedule.

Don’t wait until a blockage forces the issue.

Inspect conveying lines for wear on a regular basis.

Pay close attention to bends and joints, where abrasion from material flow is highest. If blockages keep happening despite good housekeeping, get someone to review the conveying line layout itself. Some issues are baked into the original design, not caused by a maintenance gap.

Why It Matters Beyond the Immediate Annoyance

Every blockage means downtime. Downtime on an injection moulding line is rarely cheap, both in the direct cost of the stoppage and in the knock-on disruption to your schedule. The impact often goes further, too. Inconsistent material flow can affect drying consistency. Drying consistency directly affects part quality. So a conveying issue can quietly turn into a scrap rate issue. The two are more connected than they first appear. More Information: https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/bpf-releases-equipment-effectiveness-guide-on-injection-moulding/

Get in Touch:

If your vacuum loading system is giving you more trouble than it should, we’re happy to talk it through. Sometimes it’s a five-minute fix; sometimes it’s worth a proper site visit.

Geiger Handling UK Ltd

Phone: 01782 630555

Email: sales@geigerhandling.co.uk