Working with plastic molds isn’t always easy, as mold maker at hyx mold, know. The Plastic mold company offers plastic mold making and plastic molding services for the automotive, electric, home appliance, industrial, food package, and consumer products industries.
The company’s greatest challenge is to design and make the tooling and molds for custom injection molding parts. The majority of the plastic molding parts the company helps to develop are functional assemblies and complex tool actions, thin wall molding, 2k injection molding, over molding etc.
“Customers expect us to help them reduce manufacturing costs through weight reduction and design for part and mold,” Panziera said. “We’re also expected to reduce development time to market of new products, and to validate design parameters through the use of CAE tools prior to the start of hard tooling.”
Design for automation means that the tools must be rugged enough to use again and again.
The CAE tools include plastic simulation software from Moldflow of Wayland, Mass.
The software enables engineers to reduce weight and to ensure that parts can be molded and can pass validation testing.
“Material reductions of even a few grams can provide significant cost savings,” Panziera said. “Cosmetic issues such as sink, warp, and blemishes can be addressed before tooling is produced, potentially saving thousands of dollars in tool revisions.”
For instance, a General Motors tier one automotive supplier recently approached Axiomatic for help with a troublesome chrome-plated, plastic inside-door handle, he said.
“The supplier had numerous problems with the gate blush and sink marks that only appeared after the parts had been plated. The high scrap rate and numerous tooling changes to attempt to remedy the problem were very costly,” Panziera said.
Axiomatic used Moldflow software to determine the best location, profile, and shape of the gate. The result was a dramatic reduction in scrap rate, to nearly zero, he said.
Want to know more information about plastic molds and injection molding, please go to http://www.plastic-industry.com/