In injection molding, for any faults error on any 3M (Material, Machinery/Molding variables, Mold) maybe responsible. If you have earlier used similar combination of material & got satisfactory results (Reference sample may be available), then compare MFI values of base resins, if the values are same, then grade may differ & you have to get characterization results ( DSc/TGA) to ensure same combination being used.

For satisfaction, you may test MFI, density of raw material (Resins) used for product molding to compare with old raw material specs. Chemistry wise, materials molecular weight may differ (MFI will change) or MWD (molecular weight distribution) may not same as old stock. If you are getting compounded PC+ABS blend from compounder, then percentage of individual resin components (PC & ABS) may vary or they might have used different grades of PC & ABS in preparation of blend.

The injection molding machine outputs cannot be set, but the inputs can be each time you set the injection mold. Some of these set points, like mold temperature and barrel temperatures can be set. Of course this depends on which factors are the most critical to the injection molding process. If you had ability to perform a simple screening DOE before you put a specific injection mold into production, Minitab can pare to out the most significant inputs. If nothing else, these would be the ones to monitor. However, you'd likely want to capture fill time, cushion, screw recovery (loading time) and cycle time (especially if the machine is not run automatically.

Bottom line, if you have unlimited funds to purchase advanced monitoring systems and have employees that know how to operate them properly and analyze the data they produce, then by all means use them. But if you are dependent on your machine operators to produce good product, you must give them simple tools that they can understand and use while they are right at the injection molding machine. And they can monitor virtually every shot in real time, so if something does drift, or a machine or mold issue does arise, they can notify appropriate engineering personnel immediately.

Proper location of the gate point will be directly affect the quality of the injection molded parts gate location selection should follow the following principles:

1. Gate location should be chosen in parting surface, so that it would be easier for machining and maintenance.
2. The runner should be designed even, mold flow distance and sectional size in balance can achieved stable molding quality.
3. Gating location should be on the thick-wall area so it ensure the cavity can be filled completed.
4. The mold flow should not be right on the inserts or lifter, high pushing pressure of melt flow would probably deform the inserts.
5. Try to avoid weld marks or weld lines created in the critical surface, changing location of gating and try to make the weld line on uncritical surface.
6. Consider the venting when design the gating, make sure the end of the mold flow have good venting.
7. Gates should be easily removed and gate mark should not affect the appearance of the molded parts.

There are many reasons for Quick Mold Change. We have customers who have multiple tools and also run them all in multiple colors. Prior to installing quick mold change equipment they would run a mold, change the color multiple times, then change the mold and run the next mold through various colors... This required huge inventories and all the problems that come with large batch sizes.

With our quick mold change systems installed on all of their presses they now run every mold prior to making a color change. Change time is less than 10 minutes. Lot sizes are much smaller. Many problems solved. The flexibility and efficiency now allow them to change scheduling on a dime when needed. And the cost per quick mold change system installed on a press is a fraction.

Getting to a true high class AGMA mesh in a molded gear and maintaining that over a production run is difficult. I have found that very few molders worldwide can achieve this. This can be said for any gear class but the higher the class the more rare. HP is the worlds number one high-class gear user, finding molders competent in making gears that meet these standards is an ongoing challenge.

Finding a knowledgeable gear engineer to define your mesh is the best place to start. Gear engineering is not trivial and not something you can just do with a "text book" understanding. This is an engineering specialty, especially concerning molded gears as their manufacturing issues and behavior in use is very different than machined gears. I know many premier gear providers who use such outside consultants to do their meshes though this is done behind the scenes. I recommendation is, still, to use a qualified gear engineer to provide you with the mesh you need.

It's a common way to assemble plastic components or achieve functionality by creating hole features, Location and measurement of holes need to be carefully designed to minimize the complexity of mold manufacturing and negative influence to the part strength, in this article we are going to discuss what elements we should consider when doing rib design.

All plastic have a rate in which they transfer there heat, so in this case depending on the type of plastic will depend on the amount of time needed to allow the plastic to transfer the heat into the cooling channels of your injection mould. This is better known as the heat transfer coefficient and it's different for all materials, plus all heat dissipates at 90 degree angles. Cooling design is very unique, there's no 2 parts alike so your cooling designs are going to be different for every injection mould you build, but the guide lines you use should be the same, so many water lines for amount of surface area of the part, the lines need to be within a certain distance to each other, the lines must be within a certain distance to the part surface and so on.

There is nothing wrong with using the same material for the lifter and the lifter pocket. The issues to check for are

1. Is there a difference between the angle of the back wall of the lifter and the lifter rod (usually if the back wall is greater by at least 3 deg you should be good there).
2. Are all the other lifter walls drafted sufficiently?
3. Are the lifter carriages sliding freely? No binding etc.
4. Is the ejector plate flexing?
5. Use the ejector plate guided sufficiently to ensure it is not cocking?

We have to some correction of water flow and temperature of water with mold temperature control unit, but it is extra cost and setting it to optimum level with minimum extra energy cost is critical and time consuming.

At corners, forces are in 3d for shrinkage, some corners require the design to be compromised or if not to compromise an another pre made filler plastic insert to added while molding and/or extra cooling at corners externally and/or by giving feeding material (hot), ie an extra gate point with, and its direction of feeding material, towards the shrink pulling.

There is virtually no way to completely eliminate the appearance of glass fibers at the surface of an injection molded part, particularly with this high a loading percentage.

As you probably know, the glass fibers are like logs floating in a stream of water, as long as the channel is wide enough and the flow through the channel is not turbulent, the logs will orient themselves axially, parallel to the stream flow. When the channel changes in depth or width to create turbulence the logs will begin to randomly orient themselves and get bunched into clumps of logs. If two streams of logs come together the collision of the two log flows will randomly orient where they come together jamming and restricting flow.

To get a quality injection molded part, besides a quality mold, you need to know how to setup the process working condition correctly, optimum working condition setting provides the minimum cycle time, lower scraps rate, stable performance and quality parts, a complete injection molding process includes: filling stage, compression stage(packing), holding pressure stage, cooling stage, ejection. There are three major elements to consider to setup a correct working condition: temperature, pressure time.

Mold assembly is one of the most critical steps of mold making procedure, all the parts machined or purchased need to be put together and required to be work functionality. Mold assembly job requires comprehensive understanding of mold structure as well as injection molding. Quality of mold assembly determines the mold precision, injection productivity. The work instructions below can be treated as a guide for mold makers.

All parts are machined correct and clean, the work tools required are available and the workplace is well organized, before assembling the mold, all the components must be check and verified.

There are more for different types of mold structure, such as 3 plate mold, they have unique design of latch lock, limited pull plate, runner plate etc. and for hot runner molds, they have special design for hot runner manifold plate, and installation of hot nozzle wiring, plugging etc.