With over 20 years of deep cultivation in the field of cast film machine manufacturing, “Jinqiu Machinery” has continuously broken through key technologies, bringing all product indicators to internationally advanced levels.

During the plum rain season, the rain patters softly outside the window. Inside the R&D center of Zhoushan Jinqiu Machinery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Jinqiu Machinery”) located in the High-Tech Zone, it is unusually quiet, with only the sound of mechanical friction from the high-precision intelligent LTCC industrial cast film machine during operation.

A customer from Shandong, who had made a special trip to inspect the products, carefully measured the film “produced” by the machine and praised to Li Qiuyuan, General Manager of “Jinqiu Machinery”: “The precision has reached the micron level, and the machine’s performance fully meets our requirements.”

With over 20 years of deep cultivation in the field of cast film machine manufacturing, “Jinqiu Machinery” has steadily optimized product performance, step by step bringing its cast film machines to internationally advanced levels. With its strong capabilities, the company has been successfully listed among the first batch of provincial-level “Specialized, Refined, Distinctive, and Innovative” small and medium-sized enterprises this year.

In 2001, leveraging his expertise in electroplating, Li Qiuyuan embarked on an entrepreneurial journey, focusing on mechanical equipment manufacturing. By chance, during market research, he came across Japanese cast film machines. “A single set of equipment was priced at 10 million RMB, and that was back in 2000,” Li recalled.

Cast film machines are specialized production equipment for manufacturing cast film. The process involves coating mixed raw materials onto a carrier substrate, followed by drying, solidification, and other processes to produce film. These films are widely used in packaging film, new energy battery separators, medical breathable films, and other industries. At that time, domestic cast film machines were predominantly mid-to-low-end products, while high-precision products were almost exclusively supplied by foreign brands.

“What foreigners can make, Chinese can make too!” With this “never-give-up” mentality, Li founded Zhoushan Jinqiu Machinery Co., Ltd. that same year, focusing on cast film machine manufacturing.

In the early stages of the company, “Jinqiu Machinery” primarily relied on two business lines—electroplating and precision parts processing—to generate revenue. To overcome the “bottleneck” technology as early as possible, Li invested over 15% of annual revenue into cast film machine technology R&D. He also conducted thorough market research and adjusted product design directions at any time according to customer requirements.

Different cast film machine products have different production requirements. The processing precision for some high-end bio-membranes and ion-exchange membranes is only ±1 micron, which posed a challenge to the performance of cast film machines.

During that period, the workshop often remained lit throughout the night. Li led his team in repeatedly researching and designing key cast film machine technologies, including the overall structure, slurry formulation process, film casting mechanism, transmission mechanism, and heating and drying systems, while conducting extensive experiments.

±5 microns, ±3 microns, ±1.5 microns… The precision of cast film machines produced by “Jinqiu Machinery” has been continuously pushing the limits. “Improving precision from ±1.5 microns to ±1 micron is like going from a score of 98 to 100—the last 2 points are the hardest to achieve,” said Li.

After ten years of perseverance, in 2019, “Jinqiu Machinery” achieved a breakthrough in key technologies, successfully developing high-performance low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) casting equipment. This equipment can control product flatness within 1.9% of thickness, and control thickness error within 150 microns ±20%. It can operate continuously for 100 hours, with the precision and roundness/straightness of the main shaft and doctor blade both controlled within 1 micron. All indicators have reached internationally advanced levels, yet the price is more than 50% lower, filling the gap in the domestic market for high-precision equipment in this field.

Today, “Jinqiu Machinery” has ranked among the top ten LTCC cast film machine companies in China, holding over 20 authorized patents. It has an annual production capacity of more than 30 sets of high-precision intelligent LTCC industrial cast film machines. Its products are supplied to multiple research institutes and listed companies, including the Ninth Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, Tian Tong Holdings Co., Ltd., and Jiangsu Canle Technology Co., Ltd.

Currently, the new factory site of “Jinqiu Machinery” is under renovation. Sixteen electroplating machines have already been put into operation, and other production equipment is being commissioned one after another. This new site, covering an area of over 60 mu (approximately 4 hectares), will double the company’s production capacity.

“In a few months, all the equipment and personnel from the old factory will be moved to the new site. At that time, we want to go even further—to make better products and challenge even higher limits,” said Li.

(Source: Zhoushan Daily | Original article)