Life is full of frustrations – bumper to bumper traffic when you’re already late for a critical meeting, the cyclists riding 2 abreast in front of you, chatting, on a single lane road, the well-priced tickets that sell out minutes before you get online, and the mirror that fogs up after your shower – when you’re peering blearily at yourself in the morning trying to make sense of the day.
I peered glumly at the blurred outline of my indistinguishable, bloody face in the bathroom mirror. Why is life so unfair? And now blood on my best shirt collar.
But surely there must be at least a solution to this? I might not be able to fix the vagaries of life, but hopefully I can fix a foggy mirror and stop cutting myself every time I have a shave.
The answer seems too easy, a Showerdome™. If I stop the steam escaping from the top of the shower the mirror will stay clear, I will be able to see my face more clearly and guide the blade with precision – no more the ‘bloody pirate’ look.
Success and so easy, fixed on top of the shower, the Showerdome™ is the ideal solution. A simple, effective and perfect answer.
What was needed to make it so simple, what Technology was needed to make it happen?
When Plastec Formers Limited, the manufacturers of the Showerdome™, needed to increase and automate their production line they turned to JIPL for help and advice on the options available to heat and form the large 1,200 x 1,200 Perspex® sheets used in the manufacturing process.
Working in partnership with the client and with the assistance of a Tech-NZ grant, JIPL undertook investigative research and testing of various material heating methods. Ultimately, a JIPL innovation in the application of Infra Red (IR) heating elements proved to be the ideal solution. This allows high heat transfer rates, a fast response time and energy saving switching ability – providing the level of control essential for a high quality, dimensionally accurate product guaranteed to fit every shower easily.
Based on this unique heating technology JIPL designed and built the complete automated production unit. With a Showerdome™ product range that covers multiple different shower configurations, it was essential that the system allowed production flexibility.
The Plant is designed to produce six varying shapes of shower domes using a specially-designed power press which activates an air blow system to form the dome. The press has been designed with a rotating inner frame allowing two similar or differing, upper formers to be attached. The plant has a movable carriage on either side of the centrally located press on which the various matching bottom formers are attached.
The JIPL-designed plant thus allows for two different dome shapes to be produced on the same plant, under continuous production conditions – the first in the world.
To meet the manufacturing precision required the matching formers need to be positioned to within ± 0.2 mm in all three dimensions, achieved by a complex sensing and positioning system incorporated into the JIPL design.
Using carefully controlled air pressure and the PLC controlled inter-relationship between heating, former positioning and exposure time the dome is blow-moulded to shape including the unique water drip line that is key to the performance of the end product.
The entire Showerdome™ forming plant is installed and in continual operation at Plastec Former’s Tauranga factory, a JIPL designed plant – a world first – that allows two different dome shapes to be produced on the same plant, under continuous production conditions and to strict manufacturing standards of size and quality.
And after all that, is my life better —– I’ll have to admit yes.
I am now clean shaven, blood free and smartly turned out, confident to face the world and every other test and trial that it has in store for me. All thanks to the efforts of Jonassen Industrial Projects Limited
For your ‘edge against the world’ contact info@jipl.co.nz and see how we can help you.