Telsonic UK Energise OKI Toner Cartridges

Application Development and Collaboration Ensures Success

With over 40 years experience, Telsonic has been involved in a multitude of welding and joining applications across a diverse range of industries. The extensive applications knowledge acquired during this time enables Telsonic’s engineers to work closely with their customers to evaluate, not only the best hardware configuration for the application in hand, but also provide valuable advice and recommendations on material match and joint design which are essential elements of any successful project.

Following the initial discussions between the two companies, Telsonic undertook a series of development trials at their applications laboratory in Poole. These were instrumental in evaluating the materials, process parameters, cycle times and weld strength with a view to eliminating application risk and building customer confidence in the process. As newcomers to ultrasonic welding, OKI, Scotland had to be certain that consistent quality and weld strength could be achieved. The process would also have to be tolerant of the environment within which the welding systems would eventually operate, as following the dispensing and filling process, toner material can be present on the joint faces of the part prior to welding. Following extensive trials using each of the different toner powders, Telsonic were able to demonstrate the suitability of the process with its unique ability to effectively “push” any trapped toner material out of the joint area ensuring predictable welding results. Weld strength and integrity from the ultrasonic process was also demonstrated to far exceed the minimum requirements laid down by OKI.

Following the successful “on-line” introduction of the first ultrasonically welded product, a further 9 product variants, across the Mono and Colour cartridges, were subsequently targeted for ultrasonic welding. The next challenge for Telsonic was how to bring the significant benefits of the process to each of the product types with the absolute minimum of changes to the existing toner cartridge mouldings. Another important consideration was how the ultrasonic welding systems would integrate into OKI’s automated toner cartridge manufacturing lines and operator assembly stations, should the decision be made to further extend the introduction of the technology. At this stage, Telsonic engineers liaised with the suppliers of the component mouldings, tool makers, OKI quality engineers and operators plus the manufacturer of the automation lines. Armed with the information obtained from the collaboration of the various parties, Telsonic was able to propose modifications and an “energy director joint design”. The configuration of this joint design required only minor changes to the existing toner cartridge body and cap designs, resulting in minimal impact on the injection mould tooling and most importantly, costs.

In-Line and Free Standing Solutions

The results and statistics obtained from the extensive application development trials, combined with the minor moulding design changes needed to realise the benefits which would be obtained from the ultrasonic welding process, led OKI to introduce the technology to their fully automated Mono cartridge production lines. These systems are “puck” based conveyor lines which transport individual toner cartridges through a series of assembly, filling, capping and laser etching stations. Configured to produce 2 different Mono cartridge types, these systems were seen as the ideal platform to prove the capabilities of ultrasonic welding technology within a full production environment.

The Telsonic ultrasonic welding system, housed within its own enclosure, was integrated adjacent to the existing laser etching station. The ultrasonic head or “horn” is a duplex design enabling the system to process either of the two variants produced on the line with a minimum of changeover time, and the weld programme data is easily selected from the menu options on the HMI. Weld pressure is achieved using an electronic proportional control valve and the fully electronic weld program sequence ensures that weld parameters, limits, pressure and time are all monitored for each welding cycle providing predictable and consistent weld quality. With the system running in full production, and realising the many benefits of the technology OKI’s confidence in the Telsonic solution was such that the company started to progressively introduce ultrasonic welding across a series of free-standing filling and assembly stations used to produce Colour toner cartridges.

Using the same hardware configuration and process control concepts as the in-line systems, these stand alone stations also incorporate additional features including a single component nest design which will accommodate all of the relevant colour product variants, sensing to verify that the toner has been dosed correctly prior to initiating the welding sequence and pull down – power up safety guarding.
Today, OKI now have a total of 12 free-standing systems producing Colour cartridges, a testament to the quality and reliability of the ultrasonic welding process. Telsonic’s involvement with OKI and this project did not end with the supply of the ultrasonic welding systems. A series of structured training courses were conducted by Telsonic engineers over a 2 day period for OKI personnel across manufacturing, technical, engineering and quality departments, enabling the company to fully support the systems using their own in house resource. However, additional support from Telsonic if ever required is only a phone call away.

This introduction of ultrasonic welding at the Cumbernauld site is an excellent example of the pro-active and partnership approach of OKI engineers in seeking out new lean manufacturing processes and systems which will enhance the quality and reliability of the products which they produce, with the added benefit of reducing manufacturing costs.,