Allit AG Kunststofftechnik

29 Safe and sound all the way from –40°C to +150°C. And vice versa. From taste assurance in the drinks industry to road safety: in the days when vehicles still had carburettors, we made the Allit carburettor float – a thin-walled, hollow device. In fact this was our first European process patent, and later even a world patent. We developed a plastic alternative to existing metal products that met the requirement of being and remaining 100% leakproof. And even at temperatures in Scandi- navia as low as –40°C, the float floated in the carburettor, which would then heat up to 150°C after a few miles. These variations posed a major challenge for the float’s most vulnerable part, the weld joint. This is the kind of challenge we love: because the float was too sensitive for conventional welding techniques, we developed our own float-welding machine. At first the floats kept on breaking apart at the joint, so Allit developed a joining technique involving the non-contact heating of the plastic and then checked the quality of the joint in a vacuum and under the microscope. Mass production could then com- mence, and soon our plant was churning out 15,000 floats a day, and several million in total, destined for the carburettors built by the major German car manufacturers. However, before leaving the plant, every single float was tested for leaks, and passed with flying colours.