Such a cool video. Not many companies are willing to explain how discs are made and it is such a grey area for disc golf hobbyists that are interested in it. Nice work!
I build plastic injection molds for a living, mostly for automotive. I rarely get to see the tools run at an injection facility so this is so cool to see! When I first got in to disc golf and people started talking about different molds I was immediately like wow I understand. Love this part of disc golf! Keep up with what you guys are doing because it's awesome!!
Absolutely one of the greatest disc golf videos of all time. Peeling back the curtain in a way the big guys wouldn’t! I have wondered what this is like in real life for so long. This is extremely exciting content. Please deep dive on every part of the equipment and the process.
As an engineer by day, disc golfer by night, and full time raccoon enthusiast this was a very cool video. I love learning how these things are done and I'm hoping to start my own company designing and making something some day!
I work with injection molded products. The Engineer guy video you had a small clip of here is an excellent education tool for new colleagues who know nothing about the process. This was also very interesting view on the injection molding process from a disc manufacturing view point. I might need to share this with my colleagues as well.
Having taken college classes on injection molding and years of work in the industry, I have to say, this is legitimately one of the most effective and accessible explanations of the process and equipment that I've ever seen! Really great work, it's so awesome to see the journey and passion you put into it! Now just gotta speed up the clamp action and add a robot w/ suction end-of-arm to automate the process and cut down the cycle time... then you'll really be cranking out discs! XD
I work in manufacturing, and I disc golf as one of my hobbies for exercise, so this is the coolest. I will look for your discs next time I buy. I'd love to help support this!
Great breakdown on your process and the continuous evolution of Trash Panda! I bought my first TP Inner Core when visiting my kid in Lawrence Kansas last year and I now also have the ET II. Keep up the great work and I look forward to more great discs and content, thank you.
Mega Impressive, thanks for taking all of your time to produce this. As the director of the Flying Disc Museum, knowing how these things are built can provide additional insight. Thanks again!
I would love to see you talk about how companies are getting swirls and orbit rims. From the way you describe it, it seems like it would involve a totally different process or potentially introducing the heated plastic later in the 'screw' but it still feels like that wouldn't be at all possible with this current setup. Love what you are doing, glad you are back.
Very informative. Thank you Jesse you have open my eyes to what different plastics and molds entail in the process of making them. I had no idea. I live in the inland Northwest, and we don’t have anything locally that compares to what you have put down. I will be buying a couple of your new inner cores. I own two of the old ones and I’m curious what the future holds. Keep on being you. Huge props to yourself and your crew who keep pumping out amazing products with a small footprint.
As an ex Cincinnati Milicran Injection Molding Die Setter, and disc golf addict this video hits all my feels! I have years on these machines and spent my 20’s experimenting with them.
Super insightful thanks for taking the time to do this. There are actually a lot of parallels to the 3d printing process I didn't think about with disc manufacturing!
Would love a nocturnal box, but $80 box and $100 shipping, Australian dollars, kill that. I love what you do, it's so good to see the effort you go to, to make our sport sustainable, just wish you were more accessible over here
🙏🏻 thank you Jesse for sharing this awesome process. I’ve enjoyed following your journey from the garage to here. Best wishes to you and the crew going forward.
You mentioned the inconsistencies of recycled plastic... have you found a "happy medium" process for a given mold and range of plastic(s) or are you constantly tweaking from batch to batch?
I have quite a lot of experience of injection moulding and making a disc with center sprue is the simplest part by theory. If you use sensitive material like TPU you should consider a hopper drier directly on your machine, when you handle the material it starts to absorb moisture directly. Also make sure that you use a dry air unit and not a hot air unit, hot air units are good for simple materials like some ABS or PE and PP, but for TPU you need the low dew point that a dry air unit using dessicant drying. If you have questions you can ask me anything about the process.
I'm absolutely baffled by the mixing of SI and old Imperial units in the machine's interface. How is that even possible? Seeing "mm" next to "PSI" makes my head want to explode.
Good video. It's just enough info so people can understand more how things work and stop making up just crazy random things like they do when they dont know anything about injection molding.
How do discs come out in different weights from the same mold and the same plastic type? Can the final weight be controlled in advance, or is it by chance?
Jesse, watching this video I can't help but think about how an espresso machine works. Please look into doing a collaboration with James Hoffman. His passion exploring the "process" may rival yours.
I'm new to the Denver area and heads down on my own new recycling program/project. Can I buy you some coffee and pick your brain on your journey so far?
I would love to know about the removal of the disc / stripper plate process. I know some manufacturers talk about certain molds are harder to extract than others making it where they don’t run them in all plastics - I’ve never understood why that happens.
I've got a question. With the injector, how hard is it to embed something inside the disc. Let's say I want to puy a coin inside the disc, directly in the middle. Or perhaps something inside the rim.. Do you think it's doable?
There's a few simulation software packages specifically for injection molding that helps you figure out the hardest bits; basically controlling the shot size, material flow rate and how the mold will fill up with specific polymers (and a whole lot more). Solidworks Plastic is arguably the industry standard, though there's a few stand-alone packages also which cost even more than Solidworks, surprisingly. I'd have to check my bookmarks to list alternatives, though I wouldn't be surprised if Siemens has something for SolidEdge or a stand-alone also.
@@karaffens Ehh, I would say that largely depends on complexity. If you have a simple shape with no complications, sure. On the flip side, a lot of the objects I deal with have to be exact as it ultimately may teeter on a life dependency, in which case, those precious microns being where they need to be matters.
@@C-M-E still experience beat simulations, Ive done injection moulding for two decades and work with people doing it for over 35 years and done a lot of work people writing books in the subject. I have experience in medical device, automotive, technical, electronics and so on. In the end simulations are just simulations and experience and knowledge is what you really use.
@@karaffens That's a nice set of accolades, but imagine if you were just starting out or were working solo on a new injection project. You'd have to read some books, invest a bit of time, materials and probably precious working capital making mistakes. Or as a tool on your future belt, it's much cheaper to make digital mistakes on a path to better understanding and as you put it, gaining experience. I'm not saying right or wrong, just offering a second point of view and alternatives for others so inclined.
great video, but as a mathematician i have a natural bias towards nerds stuff like this. and the new logo is cool too. any plans to have a full logo patch?
At RPM they found recycling TPU into discs is not great as It results in shorter disc lifespans. And even though they carefully retained all their 2nds, they had no way to use them. And then they started producing the Weta Mini. And of course a mini doesn't suffer the extreme life of a heavy thrown disc, and so they are now using their big stash of seconds to mould their minis, with zero cost for plastic - except chopping and drying.
Have you thrown Trash Panda yet? I’ve put my Inner Core (1.5 yrs) and Dune (9 months) through the wringer (including hitting a lot of trees 😢) and they are holding up great!
