Our Services - Injection Moulding
We ensure the process is as cost effective as possible without compromising the quality of the products, and we achieve this though our powerful combination of innovative engineering and cutting edge product development. We understand that the engineers of our clients may not be well-versed in our products and we use our expertise to help them discover alternative designs, materials and production methods to ensure an efficient process and top quality product.
Design Guideline
Injection molding is used for manufacturing a wide variety of parts, from small components like AAA battery boxes to large components like truck body panels. Once a component is designed, a mold is made and precision machined to form the features of the desired part. The injection molding takes place when a thermoplastic or thermoset plastic material is fed into a heated barrel, mixed, and forced into the metal mold cavity where it cools and hardens before being removed.
Tooling
Mould and die are used interchangeably to describe the tooling applied to produce plastic parts. They are typically constructed from pre-hardened steel, hardened steel, harden steel, and/or beryllium-copper alloy. Of these materials, hardened steel molds are the most expensive to make, but offer the user a long lifespan, which offsets the cost per part by spreading it over a larger quantity. For low volumes or large components, pre-hardened steel molds provide a less wear-resistant and less expensive option. The most economical molds are produced out of harden steel. When designed and built using CNC machines or Electrical Discharge Machining processes, these molds can economically produce tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of parts. Note that beryllium copper is often used in areas of the mold that require fast heat removal or places that see the most shear heat generated.
Injection Moulding
The injection molding process uses a granular plastic that is gravity fed from a hopper. A screw-type plunger forces the material into a heated chamber, called a barrel, where it is melted. The plunger continues to advance, pushing the polymer through a nozzle at the end of the barrel that is pressed against the mold. The plastic enters the mold cavity through a gate and runner system. After the cavity is filled, a holding pressure is maintained to compensate for material shrinkage as it cools. At this same time, the screw turns so that the next shot is moved into a ready position, and the barrel retracts as the next shot is heated. Because the mold is kept cold, the plastic solidifies soon after the mold is filled. Once the part inside the mold cools completely, the mold opens, and the part is ejected. The next injection molding cycle starts the moment the mold closes and the polymer is injected into the mold cavity.
Design & Construction of Injection Moulds
Concept
Injection moulding is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting material into a mould. Injection moulding can be performed with a host of materials, commonly thermoplastic and thermosetting polymers. Material for the part is fed into a heated barrel, mixed, and forced into a mould cavity, where it cools and hardens to the configuration of the cavity. After a product is designed, usually by an industrial designer or an engineer, moulds are made by a mouldmaker (or toolmaker) from metal, Usually pre-harden steel with precised machining to form the features of the desired part. Injection moulding is widely used for manufacturing a variety of parts, from the smallest components to entire body panels of cars. Advances in 3D printing technology, using photopolymers which do not melt during the injection moulding of some lower temperature thermoplastics, can be used for some simple injection moulds. Parts to be injection moulded must be very carefully designed to facilitate the moulding process; the material used for the part, the desired shape and features of the part, the material of the mould, and the properties of the moulding machine must all be taken into account. The versatility of injection moulding is facilitated by this breadth of design considerations and possibilities.
Tooling Design
At Sani Moulds, we understand that your investment in tooling is substantial and the proper design and construction of your mold is critical. As part of the product development process, our experienced Tooling Engineers will work with your Program Manager to ensure that your molds are well-designed and constructed to deliver maximum part-to-part repeatability and reliability over the life of your product. Our extensive mold building standards, coupled with in-house mold flow capabilities, assure you that we will deliver the best possible mold for the Class that you specify. You receive a best-in-class mold designed and delivered on time and at budget. After your mold is in service at Sani moulds it is meticulously maintained throughout its production life as part, tooling preventive maintenance program.
Real Time, Embedded Systems
Our production process monitoring is the most comprehensive system in the industry. We use not one, but two fully embedded, real time systems to “one-two punch” how we continually measure and track the production of your parts: shot-to-shot, each and every part. coupled with our proprietary facility-wide process monitoring system, gives you the highest level of production data available in the industry today. No other molder can provide you with more comprehensive process monitoring data of your parts than Sani moulds.