Hot melt adhesives are widely utilized in packaging and printing industries due to their versatility, high performance and resistance, creating strong bonds with quick setting time for a wide range of substrates, even in harsh environments. However, cost efficiency is not always considered a strong point of HMAs, as high operation costs and energy consumption will certainly lead to a question – how to optimize the hot melt gluing?
There are a number of ways to boost your HMA gluing efficiency and in this article, we will focus on two of them, which are hot melt dotting and using both HMA and cold glue together.
Hot Melt Dotting
Hot melt dotting, also called stitching, is a technique used by industry professionals to greatly reduce the amount of applied adhesive, resulting in a much lower operational cost. The glue usage reduction can vary between 40 to 60 percent and can be achieved by replacing a continuous line of hot melt adhesive with a series of dots or lines. Such an approach not only does not weaken the quality of bonding, but in some cases makes it stronger, as faulty applied, long adhesive lines may actually break easily.
As much as it sounds extremely straightforward, there are some requirements that have to be considered. First of all and most importantly – you need to possess a CNC gluing machine that can be programmed to deliver an appropriate output. In the case of FELIX GLUER, every single one of our glue plotters is equipped with FG : PRO, a robust CAD software that manages both the design process and the glue application. Selecting the “Intermittent flow” option in the glue head configuration menu is one of many options that allow you to customize the way glue paths are created.
Another critical requirement is a glue head capable of applying adhesive in a specific manner that provides a control over glue flow and glue application. Again, FELIX GLUER plotters come with broad configuration options for gluing heads, with basically any of available head sets and nozzles allowing the application of either dots or microdots.
