Tag: Plastic Injection Mold Build

Top 5 Injection Molding Defects to Avoid

Posted on July 10, 2017 by - Blog

Top 5 Injection Molding Defects to Avoid

You need to recognize what sorts of value deformities to search for to ensure your item fulfills your client. We should take a gander at the assembling procedure and the infusion forming defects that generally influence these items.

Infusion shaping is a typical assembling process used to make segments made of metals, polymers, glasses, desserts and different materials. Pellets of material are liquefied and after that infused at high weight into a mold that will set to frame the coveted part. Infusion shaping is utilized to deliver things, for example, kitchen utensils, cultivate instruments, housings for hardware and some more.

Infusion shaping deformities

Deformities in infusion shaped items can by and large be ascribed to issues in one of the three ranges:

  • The crude materials bolstered into the form
  • The form, or
  • The infusion forming process, (for example, the settings of the machine)

Here are five normal infusion shaping imperfections to keep an eye out for while reviewing infusion formed items, what the causes are and how you can dodge them:

1. Stream marks

Stream marks show up as a wavy pattern for the most part on smaller areas of the shaped segment. Liquid plastic, for instance, cools rapidly amid the infusion procedure and stream marks are clear when the infusion speed is too moderate. The plastic turns out to be somewhat strong and sticky while as yet topping off the form, causing the wave example to show up.

To evade this, the producer can expand the:

  • Injection speed
  • Nozzle breadth
  • Cylinder temperature, and additionally
  • Injection weight

For item review, stream imprints may be viewed as “minor” infusion forming absconds if unobtrusive and not on a noticeable piece of the thing. You should seriously think about a stream stamp to be a “noteworthy” imperfection on the off chance that it influences usefulness of your item or darkens a logo.

2. Short shot

A short shot is a fragmented segment which is caused by the stream solidifying off before the form is totally filled amid the infusion procedure. There are a couple of conceivable reasons why infusion may leave a void in the shape, for example,

  • Flow limitations, more often than not because of mind boggling or solidified stream channels
  • Hesitation amid infusion, or
  • Inadequate venting causing a development of pneumatic force against the stream

You may see short shot in your plastic show as deficient compartments in plastic racks. A basic illustration is short or missing prongs on a plastic fork. Short shots are an average significant imperfection in infusion formed items.

Tending to short shots in assembling will rely upon the reason. On the off chance that the reason is identified with fill rate or wavering, raising the infusion weight, speed or temperature are conceivable cures. In the event that there is stream confinement, you may need to clear solidified stream channels or update the form. Also, insufficient venting is best tended to by including air vents close to the finish of the influenced channel(s).

3. Burn marks

Burn marks in the plastic show up as dark or dull red staining when the material consumes amid infusion. Normally considered a minor imperfection, a burn stamp amid the infusion procedure may be caused by at least one of the accompanying:

  • Overheating because of caught air
  • Excessive infusion speed, and
  • Excessive dissolve temperature

In the event that you see consume stamps in your plastic parts, there are a couple of conceivable remedial moves to make in the assembling procedure. Shortening the process duration, bringing down the temperature as well as backing off the infusion speed may avert additionally consuming. Caught air can be settled by guaranteeing satisfactory gas vents and entryway sizes.

4. Streak

Streak is an abundance of filler material that can show up as a thin lip or distension at the edge of a part. This overabundance material shows up in light of the fact that material has streamed outside of the proposed stream channels between the plates. Streak is for the most part inconspicuous however may be viewed as a noteworthy imperfection if especially evident on an item. Some regular reasons for streak include:

  • Poorly fitting or composed trim plates
  • Insufficient clip drive, and
  • Improper ventilation

    • Molds ought to be verified that their plates fit together appropriately and just enable material to stream in the channels. Clasping power may should be expanded, since this drive shields the material from streaming outside the stream channels. Finally, air vents may should be added to keep pneumatic stress from shaping and opposing the stream.

    Unless the glimmer is significant to the point that tooling should be revised, trimming the segments is typically enough to guarantee these are not obvious on the completed item. On the off chance that inadmissible glimmer is showing up on your items, you can request that your provider ensure it’s trimmed before delivery.

    5. Staining

    Staining is an infusion shaping deformity that shows unspecified streaking or shading in an infusion formed item. Staining is ordinarily because of one of two causes:

    • Improper blending of the masterbatch, the added substance utilized for shading material, or
    • Impurities acquainted with the material amid the embellishment procedure infusion Molding Defects

      • In the event that the masterbatch is not uniformly blended, you may see a dash of shading at last item. What’s more, you can have polluting influences acquainted with a shape if the container, material nourish range or form plates of a machine are not cleaned legitimately before generation. To maintain a strategic distance from this issue, guarantee that the maker is appropriately cleaning the infusion shaping machine before delivering your things.

      Contingent upon seriousness, staining could constitute either a minor or a noteworthy deformity. What’s more, there is no real way to evacuate this imperfection through revise of the completed item.

      Conclusion

      Since you have a thought of a portion of the normal infusion shaping deformities to pay special mind to, you’ll be in a superior position to survey the nature of your own items. You’re better arranged to survey a review report of your item or investigate the item yourself.

How To Fix Injection Molding Defects

Posted on June 26, 2017 by - Blog

How To Fix Injection Molding Defects

Even though society as we know it right now would be radically different without injection molding, it’s a process few people would stop to give any thought. But in truth, injection molding is a fascinating process that involves involvement from highly skilled professionals working in a variety of different fields.

Injection molding combines art and design with science, technology and precision engineering. And while the basic idea of injecting molten plastic into a shaped cavity for mass production seems simple enough, the process is reasonably delicate, and requires special care attention along the way to ensure the desired results. Troubleshooting can easily occur if a pivotal part of the process isn’t being done right, and this will usually show up on the molded parts as defects.

The good news is that defects in your molded parts don’t necessarily indicate any significant issues with your molds. It’s completely possible for a good mold to produce bad parts when parts of the molding process aren’t being performed correctly.

Flow Lines

Flow lines show up as darker streaks in the molded part. As the name suggests, the patterns of these lines look similar to the pattern you’d expect the molten plastic to flow in, with darker lines occurring close to where the mixture enters the mold.

Assuming your mold is in good shape, the best advice for preventing flow lines is to increase the rate at which plastic flows into the mold a bit. Increasing the injection speed can prevent the mixture from solidifying at different times during the process, which should help the get rid of the lines.

However, if using the optimal injection speed doesn’t change the problem, it might be best to have your mold inspected. Flow lines are more like to occur in areas where the wall thickness isn’t equal throughout. A flow gate located in the wrong area of a mold can also cause these kinds of problems.

Weld Lines

Weld lines look a bit like seams in a garment. They’re often visible in areas around a shaped area of your molded part. And these lines are, in fact, somewhat like the injection molding version of clothing seams. They’re caused when molten plastic flowing into the mold from two different directions of flow come together.

Once again, it’s worthwhile trying to increase the injection speed to prevent this problems from occurring. You can also look into using a different kind of plastic.

If all else fails, you might be able to have your mold adjusted to change the flow pattern of the molten plastic in the mold.

Surface Delamination

Like most plastic molding defects, surface delamination is very noticeable problem. In this case, your molded prototype parts will have layers on the surface instead of appearing smooth. These layers are bad news for the part, as they easily peel away.

One of the main causes of surface delamination is the presence of a foreign material, or contaminant, that cannot mix with your plastic. This contaminant then causes the plastic to separate in the way you see with this molding defect.

A good call for preventing surface delamination is to use only as much mold release agents as is absolutely necessary. However, if your molds are poorly designed, or have faulty ejection mechanisms, your best choice is to have the mold inspected and adjusted by a qualified mold professional.

Short Shot

Short shots might cause a bit more panic for some molders. In the case of a short shot, your molten plastic will actually fail to fill up the entire mold cavity during the injection process. This will cause your molded part to be incomplete when it’s ejected, as there will be missing areas in your part where it didn’t flow into the mold.

Your first choice in fixing this problem would be to reconsider the plastic you’re using. If you’re using the wrong material, it can actually set before filling the mold cavity, meaning never flow into the parts of the mold that would usually be filled last. Increasing the temperature can also help to prevent your plastic from solidifying prematurely.

Another cause for this problem can be that your mold isn’t allowing gas to effectively escape from the mold cavity as the molten plastic flows in. This trapped gas will be condensed in the mold cavity, creating too much pressure to allow the molten plastic to flow into that area.

These are just some of the problems you might experience during molding. When trying to successfully create your first molded prototype, you’ll soon see that injection molding isn’t as simple as getting your equipment set up and starting the process. A lot of factors will contribute to creating a molded part that lives up to your expectations.

Your team of professionals will arguably play the biggest role in whether or not your part turns out as you planned. A team of qualified professionals should be able to help you with choosing the right plastics and injection speeds to mold quality parts.

But having the best team behind you is essential in all stages of part production. Including the very first stages of designing and building your mold. If your mold isn’t functioning properly, nothing else you can do will compensate for this malfunction. At Quality Mold Shop, we can help you fix and adjust dysfunctional molds, as well to design molds specifically to avoid common part defects.

How to Avoid Common Injection Molding Defects

Posted on May 29, 2017 by - Blog

How to Avoid Common Injection Molding Defects

When working with any assembling procedure, various deformities unique to that procedure ordinarily happen. This is true across many processes and industries, including plastic injection molding and high volume injection molding.

There are a few normal infusing forming abandons; be that as it may, an injection molder who is cautious about quality, similar to our group at Quality Mold Shop, will have the capacity to deal with these injection molding deformities, limiting or dispensing with them all together.

These six most common plastic part defects can all be traced to one of three sources: the resin or additives used, the injection molding process, or the mold itself.

Resin and Additive-Caused Defects

Two common defects caused by issues with the resin or resin additives used during injection molding are delamination and discoloration.

Delamination

Delamination, when a completed part has a layer of flaky material at the surface, hurts both aesthetic of your part and its strength. Created by humidity contamination of the resin pellets or by other defilement of the dissolved resin with a different resin, or by discharge specialists in the mold, delamination is the aftereffect of the resin being kept from bonding.

Various strategies, both basic and more mind boggling, can be utilized to counteract delamination. On the off chance that dampness is the issue, pre-drying the resin pellets or expanding mold temperature will offer assistance. In the event that form discharge specialists are the cause, a mold redesign that places more focus on the ejection mechanism will help to eliminate mold release. If it is caused by cross-contaminated resins, that will need to be replaced with virgin material.

Staining

Staining is basically when a completed part is not the same as proposed color. Brought on most usually by extra pellets in the container, excessively hot barrel temperature or remaining resin in the feed zone, the issue can be tended to by altogether flushing the container and bolster zone of a machine in the middle of procedures, subsequently avoiding staining as is normally done. Purging compound can likewise be successful to expel undesirable shading or resin.

Process-Caused Defects

In spite of constant advances in injection molding innovation, process-derived injection molding defects still occur. Two of the most common are burn marks and flow marks.

Burn Marks

Burn imprints are surface imprints, in some cases progressing to debased plastic, that are brought about by either caught air which ends up overheated or genuine resin that overheats. There are three approaches to keep away from burn marks: diminish resin injection speeds, which will bring down the likelihood of air getting caught; include or optimize venting and degassing systems; or reduce the mold and/or melt temperature.

Flow Marks

Flow marks are lined patterns, regularly wavy, or discoloration on a part surface. They are most generally created by resin cooling too rapidly or incorrect gate location. In the most ideal situation, flow marks can be wiped out by expanding injection speed and weight, which will guarantee uniform filling and cooling. In the direst outcome imaginable, a mold upgrade with an accentuation on maintaining a strategic distance from sudden stream heading changes and entryway area might be vital.

Mold-Caused Defects

Flash and short shots are two of the more typical injection molding imperfections brought on by mold outline or upkeep issues.

Flash

Sometimes known as burrs, flash is the occurrence of thin, wafer-like protrusions on a finished part caused when melted resin escapes the mold cavity. Most common along the parting line or up an ejector pin, flash can be caused by excessive injection speed or pressure, in which case the fix is a simple reduction. More often flash is due to poorly designed or severely degraded molds, in which case a redesign or retooling is required. Flash can also be caused by too high of a mold temperature and excessive barrel heat.

Short Shot

A short shot is when a dose of resin misses the mark regarding filling the shape. It can be brought about by endeavoring to utilize the wrong resin type or by poor process settings, yet is most normally created by door blockages or too little of an entryway distance across, a typical issue because of too low weight or insufficient warmth. On the off chance that a higher soften file resin or expanded dissolve temperature doesn’t take care of a short shot issue, you may need to upgrade the runner framework to advance stream.

Plastic Injection Molding vs. 3D Printing

Posted on May 22, 2017 by - Blog

Plastic Injection Molding vs. 3D Printing

3D printing is a relatively new technology, and with its rise, manufacturers of plastic goods are excited to explore the possibilities of manufacturing using the 3D printing process. But what are the capabilities of 3D printing? Can 3D printing replace injection molding entirely as a way of producing plastic parts?

This is where you have to be careful. While 3D printing is a brilliant and promising technology that has very useful applications in the manufacturing process, it’s not quite able to replace the standard injection molding process just yet. Learning about the differences between plastic injections molding and 3D printing can help you to get the most out of each process.

What Is 3D printing?

3D printing is basically what it sounds like. During the manufacturing process, a special 3D printing machine is used to manufacture a plastic part through printing layers of the material onto the part until it’s complete. As with regular printing you’d do at home, the 3D printer is linked to a computer with a finished plan of what the part should look like once it’s done.

The benefit 3D printing has over injection molding – and the reason why many manufacturers are interested in whether or not 3D printing can replace plastic injection molding – is because (unlike plastic injection molds) 3D printing machines don’t have to be custom made for every part. What this means is that one machine can produce a relatively large amount of differently shaped parts.

With plastic injection molds, only one shape can be made by one mold, and that shape is determined by the mold cavity, of course. For different shapes, you need different molds, and having a plastic injection mold designed and made is rather costly.

This once again shows why manufacturers would be interested in a tool that can be used for any part without having to be specially made. It seems exciting, and like it can open up the world of manufacturing to brand new possibilities that would’ve been too costly in the past.

But how does injection molding really compare to 3D printing? Can manufacturers replace their injection molds with 3D printers now? Are 3D printers the future of manufacturing in the plastic industry?

Injection Molds vs 3D Printers

It’s true that 3D printing is a promising and exciting new development in the manufacturing industry. It’s also true that 3D printing can save manufacturers money when it comes to producing their final products. But currently the 3D printing process is just not sophisticated enough to replace plastic injection molding entirely.

The best use of 3D printing is for prototyping parts. You can save enormous amounts of money by having prototypes produces through 3D printing rather than injection molding while you’re still in the phase of designing a product that you aren’t mass-producing yet. This is especially the case if you only want one or two prototypes.

But apart from helping you save money on producing a small amount of parts for prototyping, 3D printing loses its appeal once you want to mass-produce a part.

The cost per part for 3D printing will be much lower than that of injection molding initially, but the more parts you produce, the smaller the price gap between 3D printing and injection molding will become. Eventually, the price per part will break even, and after that injection molding will once again be cheaper than 3D printing.

The number of parts you can produce before reaching the break-even point where injection molding and 3D printing costs the same per part will depend on the part you want to produce. But it can be surprisingly low sometimes, so you should look into the exact costs before assuming 3D printing will be cheaper.

Injection Molding Benefits

So, the relatively simple process of molding can still be cheaper than using clever computer software and a 3D printer. That comes as little surprise. But plastic injection molding is still superior to 3D printing in many other ways.

For instance, the molding process still has a much faster turnaround than that of printing. Which makes sense, since parts are produced through molding them in one go, rather than one layer at a time.

This is one reason why 3D printing still fails to be practical for mass-production. Compared to injection molding, it is painstakingly slow and you’d need a whole lot of printers to keep up with one single injection mold in terms of parts per hour.

But 3D printing is also less versatile. You’re restricted when it comes to what polymers you can use, so producing certain things through printing is literally still impossible in some cases. Meaning that you might not even be able to use 3D printing as a practical, cost-effective alternative for prototyping some parts.

And lastly, the versatility of injection molding allows you to create products of a higher quality.

So while 3D printing is exciting, it’s still far behind plastic injection molding. The technology will need to be improved to make it faster, more versatile and cost-effective for mass-production before it can realistically be used to manufacture high quality plastic parts. In the meantime, manufacturers should feel free to look into 3D printing for prototyping a small number of parts whenever possible.

Types of Plastic Molding

Posted on May 8, 2017 by - Blog

Types of Plastic Molding

Chances are, you’ve seen various videos on YouTube about how different everyday products are made. For a surprisingly large amount of different products, there’s some kind of molding involved in the manufacturing process. Even loaves of bread are baked in bread pans to give them a shape. And most candies – whether chocolate bars or jelly babies – are poured into molds of some sort.

Molding is a quick and convenient way to reproduce the same shape over and over while getting the same result every time. Because if this, it’s the most popular way of producing plastic parts. In the modern world, plastic is all around us. From children’s toys and kitchenware, to vehicles and medical equipment.

With the wide variety of uses plastic has, there are many things to consider during the process of designing parts. Not only will you have to choose the right polymer to ensure optimum part performance, you’ll need to know about different injection molding techniques that will ultimately shape your polymer into a usable plastic part.

How to Design a Plastic Product

Assuming you’re starting from scratch, with nothing but an idea for a plastic product you’d like to create in mind, there are a couple of things you should know about the creation of plastic products:

  • It’s good to have a design on hand for any product you want to make, but ultimately, you’ll have to get engineers and professional designers involved somewhere during the process.
  • 3D printing is a great way to help you create a cost effective prototype of any product you wish to create. Because 3D printing doesn’t require a specially designed mold, it’s easy to use this method without blowing the bank. However, 3D printing fails to be a viable long-term option for part production, as it’s not very versatile and takes much longer.
  • If you need to have a plastic mold specially designed and made in order to produce your product parts, you’re looking at a hefty sum of upfront investment. Plastic molds are very specialized pieces of precision-engineered equipment. That said, a good mold can complete 500,000-2,000,000 cycles in its lifetime, depending on what kind of mold you’re looking at.

With so many plastic products on the market, many people might not realize the sheer amount of work and dedication that goes into designing and creating these products.

With that said, let’s have a look at some of the molding processes used to create plastic parts.

Injection Molding

To explain injection molding simply, it’s the process where molten plastic is injected into a mold, then left to cool. Once the plastic has cooled, the plastic part is ejected and the process is repeated.

Plastic injection molds usually consist of two halves. Think about these halves as two halves of a hollow egg shell – when pressed tightly together, this shell with form a cavity into which the molten plastic can be poured. Obviously the mold won’t have an egg-shaped cavity unless you aren’t trying to mold egg shapes, though. The cavity will be shaped like whatever part is being produced.

Plastic injection molding is incredibly versatile, and is used to produce a large variety of differently shaped parts.

Rotational Molding

Rotational molding is mostly used to create parts that are hollow on the inside.

The process of rotational molding uses centrifugal force to form parts. During the process, liquid or powder-form resin is placed into a mold. The heated mold is then rotated, causing the resin to evenly coat the inside of the mold.

Blow Molding

Things like plastic bottles (like the ones in which soft drinks are often sold) are usually made using the blow molding process.

Like with most other forms of plastic molding, there’s a mold shape that serves as the “shell” of the shape you want to produce. But unlike with injection molding, the plastic isn’t simply injected into the mold. Instead, the plastic blown into the mold shape by filling it with air, much like when you blow up a balloon. As air is blown into the plastic, it takes the shape of the mold it’s blown into.

Compression Molding

With compression molding, the plastic is poured into a mold. Different parts of the mold then compress the plastic so that it’s literally squeezed into shape. This produces strong parts, and so the process is often used in the automotive industry.

Extrusion Molding

The basic concept behind extrusion molding is that the plastic is squeezed into a long cavity to shape it. It’s basically like if you were to squeeze cookie dough into a round, plastic pipe. You’d be left with cookie dough in a long, round cylindrical shape. If the pipe where square, you’d have cookie dough in a long, rectangular kind of shape.

This is the basic concept behind extrusion molding. And so this manufacturing process is used mostly to make long, cylinder-type shapes like pipes, for instance.

Those are just basic explanations of the main processes used to mass produce plastic parts. In some cases, a single plastic product will consist of different parts, and these different parts might be produced using different molding processes.

Tips for Transferring Your Injection Molded Tooling for Manufacturing

Posted on May 1, 2017 by - Blog

Tips for Transferring Your Injection Molded Tooling for Manufacturing

Transferring your molds to another merchant to run creation can be an overwhelming undertaking. This can be a muddled, once in a while unnerving choice that can be characteristically pervaded with worry because of the various things and procedures to be considered.

Any potential injection molder needs to demonstrate its money related security as an organization before being picked as the successor in getting your tools and running production. Likewise – be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt your picked infusion decay has a recorded apparatus exchange system.

Tool exchange methodology needs to incorporate each progression the new seller will take to guarantee the smoothest apparatus exchange – one that truly restricts any loss of creation.

How to Safely Support Tool Transfer of Injection Molding Tooling

It’s the duty of your new infusion disintegrate to build up your device exchange group. This group needs to comprise of and be set up by;

  • Agents from every single proper office
  • All staff from building through generation who should be advised of your tooling task to realize what is normal before the instrument touches base at their office

Any applicable data about the apparatuses will be given to the new merchant for legitimate assessment and review of the devices. This data incorporates:

  • Drawings
  • Shape details
  • Part data
  • Generation data
  • Quality data and any required esteem included data or helper gear

Continuously talk about venture courses of events, desires and recurrence of venture updates with your infusion decay right on time in the instrument exchange prepare so you stay on top of it at all circumstances.

Confirm Personalized Service

Your apparatus exchange group ought to work eagerly with a specific end goal to bolster and guarantee brilliant principles for your plastic parts are accomplished. This will incorporate;

  • Plan of Experiment
  • Finish Process Validation
  • Creation Realization Process
  • Approved ERP System
  • FMEA
  • Capacities Studies
  • Improvement of Custom Control Protocols
  • Accomplish dock-to-stock status with customers

Pick an organization with elevated requirements of incredibleness and an unmistakable duty to supportability and worker obligation. These qualities ought to be tied down in the organization’s way of life in a way that keeps them adding to and keeping up a focused industry edge.

Why To Secure Value Expansion and Evaluation for Manufacture-capacity

Keeping up fabricate capacity implies growing your esteem. This happens when the infusion decay legitimately assesses the accompanying:

  • State of the mold
  • Sap choice
  • Part geometry
  • Nature of particulars
  • Clear, reliable documentation

These assessments additionally require forthright arranging, venture, correspondence and clear ID of objectives.

Assessment and Validation of Performance

Approvals are required for successful execution assessment. The execution of FAIR’s and CAP’s assistance with approval, as well as with confirmation of part conformance and determinations.

Creation handle assessment occurs after the approval and before the new disintegrate starts to oversee and deliver the new parts.

Pick Experience for your Tool Transfer – Expert Customized Injection Molding

When you are compelled to do a major switch in assembling – it ought to go so easily you just notice the expansion in quality, meticulousness and opportuneness. Your commanded apparatus exchange ought to be completely effortless.

How to Choose the Proper Plastic

Posted on March 28, 2017 by - Blog

If you’re looking to become a plastic molder, the two main things you should consider are your plastic injection molds and the materials you’ll use to create parts. Before setting out to have your mold designed and made by Quality Mold Shop, you should consider the purpose of the part you plan to create.

Choosing the Right Plastic for the Right Job

Different plastics have different properties, making some more suitable for certain jobs than others. If you take a look around you, noticing different things made from plastic, you’ll notice how similar plastics are always used to make similar products.

Your laptop case, for instance, will always be made from a hard plastic rather than a soft one. If you examine the properties of the plastic used to make laptop cases, you’ll notice that the plastic doesn’t really give way or bend easily. It’s hard, yet it’s durable enough to not break or crack easily if it gets a light knock. The lid on your lunch box, on the other hand, isn’t hard like that. It’s a soft plastic that easily bends and gives way. This can help it to stretch a little over the lunch box container, creating a stronger seal.

If you used a hard plastic to make a lunch box lid, it wouldn’t stay on the container as securely. And if you used a soft, bendable plastic to make a laptop case, it wouldn’t protect the hardware inside the computer from light knocks.

In both cases the plastic used was picked carefully based on the function of the part that’s being made. This is what makes plastic such a popular material for manufacturing, its versatile. But that versatility comes in the form of different polymers. After looking into plastic injection molding and different types of plastics available, you’ll see that laptop cases are most often made of plastics like ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), while lunch box lids are made from materials like polyethylene.

Practical Considerations

Of course the ultimate function of a molded plastic part will be an important consideration when choosing the right polymer for the job. But how will you know what factors to consider in order to choose a plastic with the right properties?

Here are some of the practical things to consider when choosing what material to use for your plastic parts.

Price

Some polymers are just more expensive than others, so the market value of your final product will have a big impact on your choice of polymer. The raw material could cost you anywhere from less than a dollar per pound, to as much as $50 dollars if you need a specialty material. So obviously the possible price fluctuation is huge.

And it goes without saying that you simply can’t use a polymer that costs $50 per pound as a raw material, if your final product will requires a pound, but will only cost $40. That’s an oversimplified example, but it drives home the point that cost is vitally important when choosing what plastic to use.

Durability

Some products don’t need to be very durable at all, while other products are expected to last as long as a lifetime. You’ll know how durable you expect your product to be before having a mold made, and so you should choose a plastic that can live up to these expectations.

People don’t expect disposable plastic cutlery to be particularly durable, but a reusable plastic cup should be made of plastic that won’t easily crack like its disposable counterpart.

Another essential part of choosing a durable material is its resistance to temperature. A simple plastic like polyethylene isn’t very temperature resistant. So while it’s a good plastic for everyday objects, it won’t perform well under somewhat more extreme temperatures. While hot conditions isn’t good for the material, cold conditions also negatively affect its plasticity. Meaning that a part made from polyethylene can actually break or shatter below freezing point, losing its ability to flex.

Part Design

The shape of the part you want to make will influence the polymer you choose. Simple shapes can be made using almost any polymer, but if the part you want to mold will have more holes, depressions, ribs and gussets, you have to pick your polymer more carefully. Not all plastics can be as easily shaped as others.

And while aesthetics isn’t necessarily the most important thing to consider, it’s also something that will influence your decision. Getting a plastic with high gloss, or one that will be good for making a part with a matt effect might be important to you.

Flexibility

Some parts are meant to be able to bend a lot without cracking, while others are made not to bend. It goes without saying that any part that will have to flex a lot, should be made from a plastic that can handle this kind of tension without snapping and breaking. But some parts are meant to stay securely in place under pressure without flexing or giving way, and these parts should be made from harder, yet durable plastics.

The best way to know what plastics will be a good fit for your project is to talk to professionals. Follow the advice from both the engineers working to make your molds, and a chemical engineer. After all, the best way to get it right the first time is to not base your choices on guessing games, but to rely on sound professional advice.

Want to know how to source automotive plastics? Looking for a plastic molder?

How to Design the Perfect Plastic Part

Posted on March 13, 2017 by - Blog

Used to deliver top notch exactness parts everywhere volumes and low costs, plastic injection molding offers adaptable answers for a scope of uses.

While this procedure offers a few one of a kind advantages over other generation forms, the achievement of an injection shaped part relies on upon its mold; with the correct outline, durable, quality plastic parts can be made reliably and effectively. Poor outline can prompt to expensive and tedious preparing botches.

With a specific end goal to advance the viability of high-volume injection molding and boost the exactness and nature of your parts, a few key plan components ought to be considered before proceeding onward to creation.

Divider Thickness

You can reduce — and even eliminate — most injection molding part defects by taking the time to lay out a smart wall-thickness design. The key is to ensure that the thicknesses of all walls are as uniform as possible, as molten plastic will seek out the path of least resistance (in this scenario, larger wall areas), leaving smaller wall areas potentially unfilled.

Rib Design

Ribs are utilized to fortify the quality of a high-volume injection molded part. Ribs ought not surpass 70% of your parts divider thickness, be that as it may, nor should they fall under half of divider thickness; both situations can bring about soaking in the surface of your part. Additionally, make sure to give careful consideration to the tallness of the ribs, their area, and their level of draft for simplicity of discharge.

Boss Design

Bosses are part features serving as one component of a larger product that requires assembly. During assembly, bosses can serve as anchor locations for screws, pins, or other fasteners. These components have width and height recommendations similar to those of ribs. Pairing bosses and ribs, especially in corners, can strengthen your part and significantly reduce chances of sinking.

Corner Transitions

In high-volume plastic injection molding, parts with outrageous or unexpected geometric elements can be inclined to defects — liquid plastic streams in the easiest course of action, and brutal points can obstruct that development. At whatever point conceivable, all corners and divider creases ought to be bended, with coordinating inside and outside spans. Smooth corner moves take into consideration better plastic stream.

Weld Lines

Weld lines — otherwise called weave or merge lines — happen when two plastic streams, or two areas of a solitary stream, meet. They happen most ordinarily around gaps or different hindrances, with the plastic stream isolating to pass them and afterward returning together a short time later. Each plastic infusion formed part has weld lines: the objective is to plan your part so weld lines happen in areas that don’t trade off your part’s quality or respectability.

Gate and Vent Placement

The gate of a large-volume injection mold is the point at which molten plastic exits the mold’s runner and enters the part cavity. Both the type of gate you choose and where you choose to place it can substantially impact your part’s quality. Vents, which allow air to escape from the mold as plastic rushes in, are similarly important; when positioned properly, vents can help minimize weld lines.

Plastic Injection Molding Process

Posted on February 22, 2017 by - Blog

Plastic Injection Molding Process

The plastic injection molding process is adaptable, making it versatile enough to produce anything from a simple plastic cup to car and laptops parts. While there are some alternatives to injection molding – like 3D printing and spin casting – injection molding remains the most reliable way to produce plastic goods. Because of this, injection molding is still the technique most often used to produce plastic goods in the 21st century.

But what is injection molding exactly? What does the typical injection molding process look like? And what exactly is it that makes injection molding so much more adaptable (and hence more versatile) than other options?

What Is Plastic Injection Molding?

Plastic injection molding is a technique used to shape plastic in the form of the object you’re aiming to produce. During the injection molding process, thermoplastic polymers are injected into a mold cavity. To do this, pellets of a material are heated so they can be injected into the cavity in a liquid state. This hot liquid is then left to cool in the mold so the part can properly set. Once one part is ejected from the mold, another cycle can promptly begin.

Although injection molding can also be used for metals and glass, it’s a particularly popular production process for manufacturing plastic parts.

The steps in an injection molding process cycle include clamping, injection, cooling and ejection.

During clamping, the injection mold is prepared for a cycle by tightly clamping the two halves that form the mold cavity into place. This ensures that the molded part will have a smooth appearance and ideally the molded part should have almost no line where the different halves came together, as this shows that the mold might not be clamping tightly enough.

Once the mold halves are clamped together, the mold is ready to form a part. Before the polymer is injected into the mold, the pellets are heated to form a liquid. The liquid polymer is then injected into the mold through a nozzle. This is the injection stage of molding process, which is the second stage in a four stage cycle.

Next, the part is left to cool in the mold for a predetermined amount of time. The cooling stage can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on the polymer being used to produce a part. While some polymers need hardly any time to cool at all, others can take a few minutes. It all depends on the part being produced.

Once a part has cooled, the injection mold is opened and the part is ejected from the mold. The mold will clamp again and prepare for its next cycle.

Because manufacturers know how long the cycle on their molds are, they can accurately predict the amount of parts a mold will produce every hour. This helps manufacturers know exactly how many parts they’ll be able to produce every day, week and month with a fully functional mold.

Why Is Plastic Injection Molding So Popular?

As mentioned above, plastic injection molding is a very predictable process. This predictability also makes the process dependable, as injection molding companies will know exactly how many parts they can expect from every mold they own.

Based on the amount of parts each mold is able to produce, manufacturers can calculate how many molds they need to in order to produce enough parts for their production line to operate at its intended capacity.

It should also be possible for manufacturers to estimate the amount of parts they can produce with a mold during its entire lifetime, making it easier to calculate whether or not a mold will generate enough income to cover its own costs with profit added.

All this is fine and well, but for injection molds to be reliable and predictable they must be maintained according to a maintenance schedule.

Unfortunately, some manufacturers run their molds till they break down. This might be because they’re just inherently stingy, but often times it was recommended to them by financial advisors in their company. The problem is that finance and engineering are worlds apart.

As mold manufacturers, we know that regular mold maintenance can extend the lifetime of your molds and help them operate optimally at all times. Yes, mold maintenance is an expense, but it’s not one you can cut to save money. If molding plastic parts is an integral part of your business, the condition of your molds in undoubtedly important. Cutting on maintenance by working molds till they break down will hurt your company.

It’s ironic that predictability, which is one of the advantages of injection molding, isn’t considered by many molders when overworking their molds. Fact is, a mold that works till it breaks down can’t always be repaired, and the halt in production from the broken mold can’t be scheduled because you won’t know for certain when it will break down.

When looking at it like that, it’s hard to understand why working a mold till it breaks could be considered a viable way to save money. Perhaps it’s time that molders look further into the issue of maintenance to establish what really works best.

But apart from the predictability of plastic injection molding, the process is also very versatile. Thousands of polymers can be used for injection molding purposes, and injection molds can be adapted for different uses. Which is why the process is as effective for the automotive industry as it is for the medical industry. With micro-molding technology, injection molding can even produce even very small parts with surprising accuracy.

To conclude, injection molding is popular mainly because no other manufacturing process allows manufacturers produce a lot of parts in a relatively short amount of time, all while maintaining the desired level of part integrity.

Injection Molding Machine Tending

Posted on February 2, 2017 by - Blog

Injection Molding Machine Tending

Many companies have made the change to have robotics tending machines over a worker. Is there more of a reason aside from increasing profits? Robotics is something we rely on so heavily in today’s world, they make things we do better.

Since machine tending is not specific to CNC machines, we thought it would be great idea to look at some other manufacturing tasks that can be done using machine tending, like, injection molding.
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