A molding cell running on a show floor is a small factory that has to be plumbed in a week. Power is the order everybody remembers. Air, water, and the drain are the ones that decide whether the cell actually cycles on opening morning.
We covered electrical in power at NPE and why your machine needs a transformer. This is the rest of the utility list: what the Orange County Convention Center supplies, what it does not, and what you have to bring or decide yourself.
Who supplies what at the OCCC
At the OCCC, the building itself supplies the utilities, not the show’s general service contractor. The OCCC exhibitor services page lists the center as the exclusive provider of electricity, aerial rigging, water (fill and drain), natural gas and propane, compressed air, and cable TV. It also states that labor is included in its utility prices.
For NPE2027 that means two desks. Freeman, the general service contractor, moves your machine from the dock to the booth. The building connects the air and water to it. Two orders, two deadlines, and two people to brief on where the machine sits.
Compressed air: read the outlet, not the brochure headline
The OCCC exhibitor services price list (effective January 1, 2024) describes its air service connection as a half-inch female pipe thread outlet with a maximum of 90 PSI, and asks exhibitors who need more pressure to contact the center. That one line holds three planning questions.
- ✓Pressure at the machine, not at the outletFind the inlet pressure your machine, robot, and any blow-off need, then subtract what a regulator, filter, and hose run will lose. If the margin under 90 PSI is thin, raise it in the advance window, not on move-in day.
- ✓VolumeA pressure figure says nothing about flow. A molding machine with a take-out robot and air-actuated tooling can draw more than a single demo unit. Give the center a consumption figure from the manufacturer and ask whether one connection covers it.
- ✓ThreadThe outlet is a US pipe thread. A machine built for Europe usually arrives with BSP fittings. The two look alike and do not seal together. Pack the adapter, or ask us to source it before the machine ships.
Chilled water is yours to bring
The plumbing section of the same price list covers water connections, drain connections, fill and drain by the gallon, sinks, and water heaters. There is no chilled water line. If your mold or your hydraulics need cooling, the cooling travels with the machine.
In practice that means a portable chiller or a temperature control unit running a closed loop. It solves the cooling. It also creates four new items for the booth plan.
- It needs its own power, on the electrical order, with its own nameplate data.
- It takes floor space, usually at the back of the booth, where it can be reached and not seen.
- An air-cooled unit pushes its heat into the space around it. Give it room to breathe, and keep it away from the meeting area.
- It makes noise. A booth built for conversations should put a wall between the chiller and the table.
Ask your equipment manufacturer which unit they ship with the machine for demos. Many have done this before and will tell you exactly what the cell needs.
Drainage starts in the floor
The price list marks its plumbing services as available only from the floor, with labor, placement, and one connection included in each line. Water in and drain out are ordered separately. If your demo is an extrusion line with a cooling bath, the fill and drain service is priced by the gallon, with a base tier up to five hundred gallons.
Drainage is the constrained service. Power can come down from the ceiling. Water can be run along a booth edge. A drain has to reach a point where the building can take it, and those points sit where the building put them, not where your render put the machine.
That is why the machine position and the utility points are settled on the same drawing, early. Move the machine three feet in month eight and you may be moving the drain with it.
The same connection at three prices
Every line on the OCCC list carries three rates: incentive, base, and on-site. On the January 2024 list, an air service connection ordered on site cost roughly twice the incentive rate. Water and drain connections follow the same pattern. The connection is identical. Only the date of the order changes.
Order air, water, drain, and the electrical for your chiller as one set, on one day, against the earliest deadline. Our guide to the NPE2027 exhibitor kit deadlines walks through how those dates work.
Getting the lines from the floor to the machine
Once the services arrive, they still have to travel through your booth. This is where a running cell either looks finished or looks like a workshop.
Hoses laid across the carpet and taped down on install day.
Lines routed under a platform edge or a covered channel, drawn on the plan before the booth is built.
The chiller next to the machine because that is where the hose reached.
The chiller placed first, behind a wall, and the hose run sized to reach it.
Every valve hidden behind finished panels.
An access panel at each connection, so a technician can work during show hours without dismantling graphics.
None of this needs an expensive structure. It needs the utility routing drawn before the walls are, which is the same principle behind planning material handling at NPE: the sequence decides the cost.
What to send us
- ✓AirRequired inlet pressure and consumption, and the inlet thread type.
- ✓CoolingChiller or temperature control unit model, its power requirement, and its footprint.
- ✓Water and drainWhether the cell needs water in, drain out, or a fill and drain tank, and how many gallons.
- ✓LayoutA machine drawing with every utility inlet marked, plus your booth number and size.
With those four items we can place the machine against the hall’s utility points, route the lines, and design the booth around a cell that runs.
Plumb the machine first. Then build the booth around it.