TPS Ships Custom Curing Oven for a Leading Supplier of the Contact Lens Industry

Thermal Product Solutions, a global manufacturer of thermal-processing equipment, announced the shipment of a custom industrial oven to a leading contact lens manufacturer. The Gruenberg batch oven will be used to cure a new line of Ultra contact lenses with moisture seal technology. This curing oven was designed to meet the production requirements of 10,000 lenses per hour.

The contact lens curing oven has work chamber dimensions of 36” X 36” X 48” and a maximum temperature of 150°C. It utilizes horizontal airflow with a Nitrogen atmosphere to provide a low O2 environment to cure the product at a ±5°C uniformity throughout the oven. This unit is electrically heated and utilizes a water coil to aid in faster cool down cycles to maximize the total curing cycles. The curing oven will be used continuously to meet operational capacity requirements.

The oven temperature is controlled by an Allen Bradley Micrologix 1400 PLC with an Allen Bradley Panelview 700+ touchscreen. With this controller, the curing cycle is capable of being programmable for the number of curing steps, set temperature, ramp rate, and target oxygen level for each stem in the curing cycle. In order to ensure that the program is not interrupted during a power fluctuation, Gruenberg has incorporated a UPS power back up in the control circuit to prevent the PLC from losing power and its sequence in the program profile. 

 “As the contact lens market changes and new improved products are introduced into the market place, this oven will be capable of processing the new and ever changing materials and curing requirements.” – Jason Cillo, International Sales Manager 

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