Cut order machine for artificial grass

The application of artificial grass is clearly becoming a trend. Not only for sports facilities but also for landscaping. As consumers more and more see the advantages of an ever green and maintenance friendly lawn, they start to cover their balconies and gardens with artificial grass. Although the suppliers of the artificial grass do embrace the increasing sales, they are also facing a common problem; how to present a nice looking, straight edged and tight roll of artificial grass to the consumer?

Let’s look into this problem a little deeper. As a last step in the production of artificial grass, its backside is covered with latex or another coating in order to bond the pile. The grass is then rolled with the pile pointing backwards to a nice straight edged roll, which is also tight when rolled with the aid of a centre winder. Should the grass be rolled with the pile pointing forward, a loose and telescoping roll would be the result due to the opposed forces applied by the pile to the rolling process. 

Should you want to experience the power of the pile yourself, you can do the following test. Take a plane piece of paper of at least A4 size and put it on the pile side of the artificial grass. Put a pencil on top of the paper and then roll the pencil, with a flat hand, back and forward over the paper in the direction the grass will be rolled. You will now see the paper sheet moving over the artificial grass into a direction that depends on the pile direction. You now see the result of the forces opposing the rolling of the artificial grass.

As artificial grass is mostly presented to the consumer with standard dimensions of e.g. 2 x 3 metres, the artificial grass producers or wholesalers want to produce series of standardized customer rolls from jumbo rolls rolled at the end of the backing line. Though, when unrolling the jumbo roll, the pile of the artificial grass points forward meaning it is almost impossible to roll it to a nice, straight edged customer roll at once. Therefore ETF has developed a machine which is able to produce the requested customer rolls from a jumbo roll completely automatically and with help of only one operator. 

With the artificial grass cut order machine, the jumbo roll will be unrolled automatically until the set length has been reached. The grass will then be cross cut after which the pile direction will be turned with help of a double deck inspection table with driven belts. Now the artificial grass will be rolled, with the pile pointing backwards, to a tight and straight edged roll. Furthermore the customer roll will be rolled pile out, so the consumer can feel the grass in the shop and without a cardboard core which reduces the volume of the roll and of course, save costs. 

In order to close the customer rolls with tape or belly bands of foil when the roll is still on the roll-up unit, one or more tape/foil dispensers can be installed just in front of the roll up-unit. The tape or foil will then be rolled with the last part of the roll therewith securing it tightly. If requested, also a
label can be rolled with the tape or belly bands, meaning a completely ready customer roll will be created without operator intervention. Depending on the length of the jumbo rolls and the customer rolls, up to 50 customer rolls per hour can be produced with help of the ETF artificial grass cut order machine.

Should you require any more information about the ETF artificial grass cut order machine, please contact our sales team.