Dear Sir or Madam:
Good day!
EPE production is a very good business. Easy to make money, big money. For instance, Shenzhen Moon-Bright Wrappage Co. Ltd. Has only a JYD-150 PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line, 2 Bonding Machines, its annual benefit is about 7 million CN Yuan, machine purchase cost 0.60 million CN Yuan. If a JYD-105 to make sheet, block assembly and laminated items, monthly production is about 8 tons, benefit is about 6000 x 8 = 48,000 CN Yuan and so annual benefit is about 0.576 million CN Yuan and machine purchase cost about 0.3 million only.
This composition has 4 chapters. Chapter I, EPE Applications. Chapter II. How to choose a proper machine? Chapter III. Preparation and cost control. Chapter IV. Wrong prejudice against Chinese machine
1st of all, what is EPE? EPE is a physically expanded Polyethylene, such as PE foam
sheet, profiles and fruit net. It is of a none-cross closed cell structure. It is an environment
friendly product, not to cause white pollution. Easy to resolve. It has overcome normal foam’s
shortcomings of fragile, poor recoverability and distortion. EPE has the advantages of
moisture resistance, shock resistance, sound insulation, warmth reserving, good plasticity,
good toughness, environment friendly, etc. It also have good products chemical resistance.
For export packaging, you have to use EPE. If you want to export to Europe and America,
you have to use. Even if a simple plastic film bag, laminate a layer of PE foam sheet.
Therefore it is widely used in many industries, such as electronics and electrical appliance,
gages and instrument, furniture, fruit, 5-metal, toy, daily using products, etc. If you add anti
static agent and fire retarder, its application will be even wider.
Chapter I. EPE Applications
For your better understanding, hereby some application pictures for your reference. It is far
away from a complete list. Only present main applications. If you intend to produce PE foam,
it is much better to tell supplier for what use. If more information need, you are welcome to ask
for more.
1. PE foam sheet for wrapping and bags:
2. Bonding, cut and glue stick assembly
3. Profiles for furniture, toy and sports
4. PE fruit net: At present, PE fruit net application is greatly reduced because too much labor and hard work is needed to load fruits into the nets one by one. Before Israel buyers started making super big fruit net. To cut open and put onto truck and then some fruits. Then another layer. It is a good idea. But the shortcoming is clear, the cut open fruit net is to curve over. In the recent some Sinkiang users simply use thin sheets with curves to die cut some holes. Then put it onto the truck. A layer of fruits. A layer of die cut sheets. Easy and simple.
5. EPE laminates: Frankly speaking EPE bags are not better than cheap PE or PP film bags. For export packaging, you have to laminate a layer of EPE. The film or paper may increase the EPE sheet’s printability and thermoforming.
6. Bag making and banana bag: It is a thin EPE tube with a PE film tube outside. Mainly for warmth keeping and bird/ insect protection. It is usually by our JYD-90. The popular folded sheet width is 700 – 800 mm, thickness is 0.4 to 0.8 mm.
Chapter II. How to choose a proper machine?
1st of all, a machine picture flowchart for your reference here below.
Basic knowledge: Now you know that PE foam roll is only the initial product for simple wrapping. If you have a die-cutting machine and sawing machine, you can make different assembly. If you want to make bags, lamination machine and bag making machine are needed. Profile, simple. Only to replace the PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line’s mould and haul units. Tubular Banana Bag Extrusion Line is only to add compressed air nozzle and do not slit open. PE Fruit Net is by a smaller extruder with a rotational mould.
Now let me tell you how to choose a proper machine.
1. Study you market and decide mainly what products to make. Many new investors are not sure of the market or do not have enough invest fund. If so, he should consider a universal model. Usually a JYD-105 or JYD-120 will do the job.
If JYD-105, the sheet width range is 900 – 1800 mm. Thickness range is 6.5-0.5 mm. If to make EPE hollow tube, the outer diameter is 40 – 100 mm. If solid rod, diameter 40-80mm. If mould of 3 pieces at the same time, minimum size can reach 10 mm. The shortcoming is clear small EPE tube or EPE profile can not make.
If you choose JYD-120, it is mainly to make both thinner and thicker sheets of 9 – 0.5 mm and width of 900 – 1600 mm width. There are 2 problems: 1) If you use this model to make thinner sheet, the unit weight is high and so production cost is high. Of course for thicker sheet, the weight is less than 16 kilograms per cubic meter. 2) profiles can not make.
If you have enough fund and only worried for the product quality: Easy. Come to Shenzhen Jing Ye Da Industry. 1) We may send you the proprietor for site service. He is personally the designer. So no need to worry for stable machine performance. 2) We can also introduce you a best Chinese operator. If so, he can keep your machine working, 1 or 2 PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Lines working. Every day 24 hours. You need only to give him 2 helpers for each extrusion line. His most job is sleeping in bed. You need only to give him a mobile. When needed, call him back to factory. The 2 helpers job is one for material mixing and loading. The other for web roll exchange. Of course if your store is far away, you have to give a helper to carry products away. His salary: in Shenzhen or Dongguan city, normally 7,000 CN Yuan, a little bit more than 1,000 USD. So 1100-1200 USD monthly. If you want to have a cheap operator, no good. Same as suicide. A good operator saves much more cost than your paid salary.
2. To buy a proper machine, not to buy only a cheaper machine. You must compare both machine purchase cost and production cost control for mainly 2 matters.
1) Product unit weight. Most Chinese buyers know a basic rule: If a JYD-135 by Shenzhen Jing Ye Da Industry Co. Ltd., the average sheet weight is 16 kg per cubic meter. If by other Chinese suppliers, the average weight is around 18 kg or more. So within one year the extra LDPE resin cost is around 1.2 million CN Yuan (about 0.177 million US dollars). Of course some buyers need higher density. Jing Ye Da Industry’s machine can easily give you 65 kg per cubic meter. If model JYD-150, at 3 mm thick, it can give you 95 kg per cubic meter.
2) Machine performance stability. A good machine is your money making engine, a poor machine is your headache of every day. There is an open knowledge of Chinese market, nearly everything can be super cheap and the best is also available in China market. Cheap never means real top quality. If a machine is built up with cheap parts and components, never trust its stable performance. Then how to how to clarify? A. the butane pump’s ball valve, if made in China. None is good enough. B. Butane and GSM pump, if by Hangzhou Zhejiang Petrochemical Equipment Co. Ltd., the average is about 5,000 CN Yuan (750 USD) cheaper. Butane (LPG) pump is a key unit. It must be stable and strong enough. Shenzhen Jing Ye Da is using a 3-head pump + inverter for bigger model. That is the best solution. C. Screw and barrel, if by the Zhoushan supplier, it is the most expensive and most stable one in whole China. The trade marks are just written there. Some Chinese suppliers buy cheaper screw and barrel. Some simply made by themselves. You can be 100% sure self made screw and barrel is surely much worse than a professional supplier’s. D. filter exchange station.
A real sarcastic story for your reference, once a Chinese company sold an FB-105 PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line to Iran. Then they send the workshop manager and an electrician there for site service. A whole month, the machine not working well. They escaped out into a big mountain. Caught a truck and reached China Embassy in Tehran. But the electrician’s passport was in the buyer’s pocket. The diplomats agreed to help them and put them in a nearby hotel. In the evening, 2 Tehran police with a gun captured them and sent to a police station. Then the buyer took them back to the factory. When they back in office, the export manager cursed the electrician: why not face them? Why not shout back at them? Our engineers have broken through all craftwork. Nothing to worry about. The answer is: Yes, sir. But you do not know every minute whoop! Something is burst off! We are sure of nothing…
3. To visit all your supplier’s factories and their buyer’s running machine. Facts speak louder than voice. In the supplier’s factory, you can easily see they are an ODM (original designer manufacturer) or not. You can easily find their PE foam machine selling well or not. Of course from their news, you can also find many things. If you can see initial machine run, better to watch from beginning to the end.
Meanwhile also ask to watch their buyer’s running machine. If 3 or even 4 persons operate one PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line, reasonable. If 7 or 10 persons and always busy. You can be 100% sure the machine has so much trouble. Usually a PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line needs only a good operator and 2 helpers. The helpers, one for material mixing and the other for web roll exchange. The one operator may also easily keep 2 extrusion lines working. He can also keep 24 hours working every day because his main job is sleeping in bed.
If you see so much wastage, the machine is quite possible not working well. Of course thinner sheet is more difficult than thicker sheet. Profile is even more difficult to control well.
4. Old buyer’s relationship: Every good supplier keeps good relationship with his buyers. Because the buyer always needs technical support, spare parts, improvements and even overhaul repair. Clever buyers usually contract overhaul to his original supplier. So if you want to visit his buyer’s machines. Usually easy. So simply ask to see 3 or more.
5. Intentionally ask more technical questions. For instance, 0.5,1.0…12 mm, how wide, how heavy, with wave or not. This way you can easily know the supplier is specialized or not. By the other hand, you can choose really good machines and fulfill your own market requirements.
6. Deep product process. If only to make sheets, your market is very limited. The related deep process machines are small and cheap. Deep process will bring you better benefit, too.
1) For thick blocks, if a super big model, price will be super high. And a big machine can not give you thin sheet. So the better choice is to add a bonding machine: method is open fire heating, every time 2 layers together. Of course roll to roll. So the machine is simple and cheap. If electrical bonding, more power consume is a must. After bonding, cutting can be a hand saw or a vertical saw. Then with hot melt glue, you can make many different assemblies. If you get a die-cutting machine, many special holes and assemblies can do. Such assembly is very useful. For instance for a small EPE board can easily hole hundreds of USB disk.
2) For bag making: maybe your present market does not need it. However pure EPE sheet and EPE bag is not strong. To wrap or to make a bag, not good. Furthermore, traditional air bubble bag or simple PE, PP film bags are not environment friendly. Not good for marketing nor export. If you laminate a layer of EPE sheet, sounds much better. So we have to add a PE Foam Laminate Machine to laminate a PE film, paper or aluminum. Next step, Slitting Rewinder can be a simplest cheap one. Bag Making Machine, you may consider later. Super big sized bags, you may consider an electrical manual sealer.
7. PLC: It is a good thing. But not best choice for PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line. Mainly for 2 reasons: 1) Fake heating: By our more than 10 years experience, the water cooling section, usually no heating at all during normal production. Even if 24 hours a day running. 2) Easy trouble shooting. If with PLC, even if a smallest resistor is bad, the whole machine must stop to do trouble shooting. A professional electrician is needed. If the simple temperature sensor + temperature controller, if one item is bad, pull out and replace it. An illiterate operator can solve most trouble.
8. A few popular misunderstandings:
1) Extrusion quantity: Many new buyers often calculating by the maximum sheet width at the maximum thickness. This is wrong. Because an extruder is basically like a grouting pipe. If the diameter is fixed, the wider sheet the thinner must be. The width is contradictory to thickness. For instance, model JYD-120, when the width is 1600 mm, the thickness must be 0.5 mm. If 1600 mm wide and 1.0 or 1.5 mm thick, maybe the machine can do. But the extrusion line is easy to wear off. If you keep a machine running always at its maximum speed, really easy to collapse. A Nepal buyer has been doing this way.
2) Width & thickness ranges: if the supplier tells you’re the width is 900 – 1600 mm, 0.5-9.0 mm thick, this does not mean to cover them all. Because we have to consider product density, weight, with waves or not. Because a mould has limited the extrusion thickness and width. Basically 1 mould 1 width. If to consider all the possibilities and also to cover all the widths, too many moulds are needed. Of course you can adjust, the range is 100 mm in width. So we need to discuss with the designer. 1 extrusion line’s normal configuration is with 3 moulds and 3 mandrels. Enough for most users.
Mandrel: it is made with steel pipe. So you may order smaller sizes. If you need bigger sizes, you may use foam and corduroy cloth to wrap it and make it bigger. Most Chinese buyers prefer make and take only 2 pieces away. Later to book and make the 3rd one because the market will tell him the new width. Mould is also the same.
3) 2nd time foaming: When you get PE foam roll from the machine, you have to send to the store for some days to let gas come out of the foam. Then the foam will grow a little bit and get about 1 kg lighter each roll. We call this 2nd time foaming. The time depends on. In winter, longer. In summer shorter time. If for open fire bonding, you have to keep it there for minimum 10 days in summer. Otherwise it will catch fire.
4) Foaming gas: Usually both liquidized LPG and butane can use. An Israel buyer is using a special gas, even cheaper than LPG. Not causing fire. Workers may smoke or use open fire in the extrusion workshop. However LPG will give bad smell. Your product buyer may not accept.
5) Butane/ LPG bottle and nitrogen: The simplest and safest way is by a bottled nitrogen to push butane / LPG (a cooking gas) gas into the pump. The butane/ LPG bottle with 2 nozzles. One in and one out. If so, you may link up 5 or 10 bottles before start running. Then you may keep the extrusion line working for a whole day with no middle trouble.
If you do not have butane/ LPG bottle with 2 nozzles and have to use a big gas tank. That is a big bomb. Very dangerous and so please locate it far away from workshop. With our long long steel pipe to pipe into the extrusion line. However before enters into the pump you have to use compressed air, to raise butane/ LPG gas pressure to minimum 0.8 MPA. The normal pressure before the pump is 0.8 -1.5 MPA.
6) Danger of pressure jar: We can say PE foam extrusion is not so dangerous. Because modern screw and barrel are mature and safe. Gas may keep far away from your workshop. And your workshop is with very good ventilation. Even if some gas leaking or extruder ignition, controllable. A typical danger comes from stupid operation. For instance, a new “operator” keeps the pump pumping for a long long time with the ball valve tight closed. Then the ball valve got burst. This is not a problem of the machine design. This machine does not need a best workshop, but demands good ventilation.
7) Product storage too small. If a JYD-150 PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line, monthly products reaches 150 to 170 tons. So the store needs minimum 6,000 square meters. You can not keep shipping out every day.
No lighting in the store. Do not install any lights nor electrical items inside your store. The reason is very simple that a little sparkle may cause a fire disaster. Of course open fire, smoking, mobile, flashlight, etc are seriously forbidden there.
Bonding Machine, must be in a separate room from the PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line because open fire is to be used in the bonding machine.
8) Water consumption: the PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line has a water reuse system. If you build a water reservoir, add a pump and a water tower, you can reuse. Water is only for direct cooling of the front part extruder. Only at beginning using so much water. During normal production, only a little water dropping onto the barrel.
9. Mind misguiding: The present Chinese suppliers...
Chapter III. Preparation and cost control.
1. Preparation
Some buyers often push the service engineer to arrive as early as possible. When he reaches there, nothing is ready. Often a whole month is wasted and nothing done. Then by the contract, the service engineer must come back to China. This happened somewhat often. It is a bad story to both the supplier and buyer.
1.1 Power supply: 380 VAC with 3 hots, 1 comma and grounding. If different, available at request. Please inform the supplier before building the machine.
Actual power consumption is absolutely a different matter from installed power capacity. The following data are based on Shenzhen Jing Ye Da Industry’s PE Foam Sheet Extrusion Line.
JYD-70, installed: 55 KW, needed: 40 kw
JYD-90, installed: 130 kw, needed: 45 kw
JYD-105, installed: 105 kw, needed: 60 kw
JYD-120, installed: 200 kw, needed: 75 kw
JYD-135, installed: 210 kw, needed: 100 kw
JYD-150, installed: 230 kw, needed: 100 kw
JYD-170, installed: 280 kw, needed: 100 kw
JYD-200, installed: 330 kw, needed: 160 kw
1.2 Reservoir with water piping: 10 CBM
1.3 LDPE resin: foaming grade
1.4 Distilled monoglyceride (GSM). Quantity is 3% - 5% of LDPE resin. If you do not have a good supplier, refer to
1.5 Talcum: The grade is 2000 – 4000 meshes. Quantity is 0.3%-0.5%. If you do not have a good supplier, refer to
1.6 Paper core of ID 3 inches. Enough. If your buyers do not mind, a few pieces will be enough.
1.7 Butane / LPG bottles with 2 nozzles, 12 to 20 pcs. And with the liquidized gas.
1.8 Bottled nitrogen, 5 pcs.
1.9 Electronic scale of 5 and 100 kg, each 1 piece.
1.10 Stainless filter, a few square meters.
1.11 Glove, some pairs
1.12 Big sized trolley, 2 pcs
2. Cost control
2.1 The best cost control is to hire a well experienced good operator. He can reduce so much wastage, much less trouble, lighter products and better product appearance. If to train a good operator from beginning, he needs usually half a year. If he is a smartest man, minimum 3 months. If to hire a good Chinese operator, the monthly salary is around 1,200 USD and with free food and accommodation. 1 good operator may keep 1 or 2 extrusion lines working 24 hours a day. His main job is bed sleeping. 1 extrusion line need 2 helpers. One for material mixing and the other for web roll exchange. Of course if the store is far away, you have to get 1 more helper.
2.2 Keep the machine working for 2 weeks or 20 days with no stop. This is because any extruder gives over heated material at the beginning. That is a lot of wastage. Usually about 60 to 100 kg will be wasted. Of course if machine gets bad in the middle, you have to repair it in time.
2.3 Use some recycled LDPE resin. Maximum can reach 60%. If the product is not white or looks dirty, add some whitening agent. However for thin sheet production, less or no recycled material. The shortcoming is that recycled material may be a mixture, not only foaming grade LDPE. Maybe some metal or stone mixed inside. And so the extruder’s service life is shorter or even much shorter. Once an operator lost his wrench in the hopper and got clutched in the barrel. The only way out was to replace both the screw and barrel.
3. Save the paper core. When a roll is completed and cut off from the turret boom, rotate that boom in counter clockwise to loosen the sheet. Then pull out the paper core. (Only for thick sheet rolls)
4. Moisture.
Chapter IV. Wrong prejudice against Chinese machine
Chinese machine and products gives a lower price. This is globally well known. However this does not mean all Chinese products are of poor quality. For machine building, it is not needed to use only best single part and component. For 2 reasons. 1) Machine and production line’s key point is craftwork. 2) Best machine, such as Germany machine, is super expensive. We may split the difference.
In comparison to Southern Korean PE foam machines, our design is nearly the same. In the recent we have some craftwork breakthroughs. For instance, unit EPE weight, lighter than theirs. Gyo Ha En-Tech Co., Ltd may identify. It was a Korean company and old machines all from Korea. It is located in Shandong province, just cross the sea to Korea. JYD-105’s roll foam is about 2 kg lighter than that of German machine. Indonesian Trimitra Packaging Group may identify.
Thanks and best regards.
Yours sincerely Mr. Firstop Tan
Shenzhen Jing Ye Da Industry Co. Ltd.
June 14, 2009 
