Hi folks, This week I did some production molding of black boxes that the customer said I can show. So, please enjoy this work done on the 99 US Ton molding machine.
fascinating to watch. how we mount a mould in so many different ways. \where i work, direct bolts, clamps and my fave magnetic platens. really a great watch. have subscribed, Our company is mainly upvc. Building products. I am aspergers and I actually enjoy my job. 30 plus years in injection moulding. regards Mick
You can make things easier by picking a standard spot and putting in a couple 1/4-20 flat head screws on your insulator plates. Same with the locator ring. On the slides, if you cut a .020-.040 deep figure 8 on them it helps with the lube and wear. Cutting the figure 8 with a small dia ball cutter also helps. You brought up the mold lasting 10,000 shots. If you know you are going to want more then that, but aren't going to make enough shots for a production tool, anodizing helps a lot to extend tool life. It also helps keep the finish good, so you don't have to keep re-polishing and blasting. On the hold down straps, you likely always use the same size backing plate and insulator on most molds. Making some straps with a peppermint spacer on the back is a really nice thing or just cutting a spacer the size you need and supper glue it under the straps you are using. It then no longer requires 3 hands to put them on and lets the wrench swing over the top of them. I also find it easier to put the knock out bar/bolt in the mold before putting the mold in the press. Just a few little things. Thanks for the videos, I like the channel
You are doing better than some who call themselves molders. 1- molding is a heat process, you need to achieve precise mold temperature, otherwise the process keeps getting hotter. Install a cooling circuit. the quicker that you return the mold temperature to its set point, the quicker is your process. 2- Too much unheated nozzle. nozzle should be completely enclosed with nozzle heater, running 2-3 degrees below zone 3. Good luck
your enthusiam and tenacity comes over. I kind of think working with you would make the job very interesting. I am learning alot about injection molding and some of the pieces that make it happen. Thanks for the education and enjoyment.I wonder if you should be doing training films for the industry.
love the vid. one observation though. you can place the ejector rod with the mold closed because you have ejector return pins that stick out further than your ejectors (should). this is a safety precaution to not smash or destroy your ejectors if you eject forward and not have the bolted causing you to crush pins. so keep mold closed. a lot easier.
Hi Sugafree, yes I agree, unfortunately this mold was made so fast that there are not return pins. Your point may be enough for me to spend the time to add return pins to future molds. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the vid. One thing - leave a clamp on the op side stationary platen so the mold doesn’t bounce when you open the clamp. You can see if you need to adjust your hoist when you slowly loosen the bolt. Stay safe!
Tap a hole in each mold half. Put a tie bar across with two bolts to keep the mold closed. Put a lifting eye in the bar at the balance point. This will keep the mold together for handling, installation and storage. We always do it this way.
Like the compressed air ejection via the ejector pins. Could aid cooling pins and cut down on binding too. We ran an aluminium mold that was meant for pre production and ended up using it to make over a million parts. Think we re-bushed pins but the spec of the part stayed in tolerance. That tool had similar 30 degree slide pins. Think we sleeved them with a bush. Its a while ago. Haha. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing
Haha, don't know about that. The machines were more manual, no computers. Wish i had had some of the machine available now. That's progress for you. We could have used air to assist ejection in fact i can think of one job for a Rolls Royce tail light reflector that would have been a lot easier had we thought of air ejection. All the things you said about bowing and stress marks rang true. Think we were using glass filled nylon. Thanks again. Look forward to your next video
Uh huh. Famous last words - “unit tooling”. We are only going to make 500 parts. That 500 become 5000, then 10k, then 100k. Then it becomes - how many can we get out of this tool? Luckily I work for a mold maker so I don’t have to deal with that anymore😀
Yes we were lucky. Also my dad was a genius tool maker. ICI used to give him experimental plastics to 'JUST TRY IT AND LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!!' Legend
@@ruperthartop7202 That is awesome. Every processor should have that opportunity. I had that opportunity with LIM at my last shop when the president told me to “figure it out, have some fun”. Roll forward 3 years and I was suggesting materials for projects. Be well!
good video, the problems are similar to 3D printing, the plastic needs a certain temp. to melt, but like solder it can become 'jelly' and not a hard set, settings dependent, so it takes some time to "iron out the kinks", like sticking to one side, not being fluid enough, etc. all part of the coarse, even some elements of design, like too thin a wall can have an effect on things, so only certain shapes are good for this "additive manufacturing" process; hence why a lot of processes exist, 3D plastic forming, injection moulding, casting, milling, drilling, turning, all are most suitable to only a few part designs.
I do it in a different way , disconnect Ejector and bar , then take the clamps off from moving platen ! open the mould while the tool still attached to the fix half , once moving platen open completely then remove the clamps on fix half !
@@DragonflyEngineering Please made video on dr. Boy's MMI functions such as injection, clamping and other functions if possible, Thank for your reply I appreciate your work
3 года назад
Cảm ơn vì video! Một câu hỏi: bạn nói trong những đoạn phim trước đây là một căn phòng sạch. Thế nghĩa là sao? Rửa tay và mặc một bộ đồ thỏ để không
from google translate: Xin chào Cảm ơn đã xem. Phòng sạch có 2 bộ lọc hepa với quạt gió để giữ áp suất không khí dương. Tôi mặc bộ đồ chú thỏ để giữ cho các sợi áo sơ mi và bụi khỏi các bộ phận nhựa. mức độ sạch sẽ tùy thuộc vào nhu cầu của khách hàng:
Probably know but if you get a air pressure regulator on the air inlet port wright on the side of the mould, it will sometimes help greatly, it will limit the air volume by limiting the pressure but on ejection contiune suppling air volume. You've just got to start low and build up until it hits the sweet spot, you done even need a gauge if you plan to leave it attached to the tool. Jim🏴
Invest in a 30-36" long chain with a hook on only one end, get rid of the strap! Strap has way too much give to "catch" the weight as it comes off the platen. Also release the mold from the moving platen and open the press before releasing from the hot side. Also note that the ejector pins will NEVER hit the cavity face with proper length return pins, that is what they are for, to return the ejector plate. Just some observations for now, 40+ years building and running injection molds here, have seen and done some wild "accidents" during those years!
Thanks for the tips. I will get that chain and hook ASAP. will keep my fingers out of the pully too. I do typically put return pins in molds, unless I don't have time due to customer rush, like this one.
Hi. Thanks for showing the mold with moving parts. I've always wanted to know how it works. How to get glossy surfaces of the parts? What is the service life of an aluminum mold without moving parts?
I think for the glossy surface, you only need some polishing paste. In the past, he polished molds using some kind of cerium metal polish, so I assume that's what he used here. No idea about tool life though.
Hi, yes Vincent is right, I use IOSSO metal polish or aluminum oxide slurry followed by cerium oxide slurry, ( mcmaster carr to buy powder) The surface is raster cut with high RPM and low tool step over, then polish. A Alum mold without moving parts can last ~10,000 shots assuming there are minimal fragile features like long pins. you can also rework the parting line to fix flash problems but your part gets shorter. Thanks for watching!
@@DragonflyEngineering I mean, why shouldn't I watch? I have clearly gone pretty deep into the youtube machinist community, since Blondi (which sent me here) had ~30k subs at that time. And I also like computer stuff and robotics, so this is the optimal channel! If you want, you can give us some short snippets in the story (since I assume that takes less work than cutting a complete video), or give us sneak peeks of what is to come.
You can also add heat for a glossy surface. Sometimes packing will help. I once had to pack out a part at 28,000 ppsi to get the finish that was required.
Thank you so much for this video I learned a lot. I've always wondered is this process stinky? Like if I add an injection molding machine to my machine shop do I need to worry about my neighbors being bothered by the smell? or it stinking up the shop?
Thanks for the video! One question: You said in previous videos that this is a clean room. What does that mean? Washing hands and wearing a bunny suit to not bring in any chips/abrasive dust from machining? Air filtration?
hi Vincent, yes the room is setup to be a clean room with 2 2x4 ft heppa filter blowers in the ceiling for positive air pressure. I gown up to various degrees depending on the needs of the customer parts, (and the video presentation) I keep the jump suit on most of the time since shirt fibers are the biggest problem with static charged new molded parts. I don't keep a constant clean standard due to the high amount of reconfiguration of the room needed , (which can be a dirty process) thanks for watching!
Most/all injection molds have a external bolt clamp that holds them together when not in use? Also going forward all electric toggle machines are normally faster, cheaper and a lot less messy. Curious as to why you need/use a "clean" room. Is this a customer requirement?
What temperature do you heat your aluminum mold? Also if the mold was steel would you need liquid coolant circulating through the mold to keep it cool enough?
I think it was 175 F. It probably would need liquid cooling to keep the insert the right temperature. I was surprised that I didn't need it for the aluminum mold. Thanks for watching!
We use similar setups with those inexpensive winches for our 4th axis machines so we can lift the indexers off to one side when not used. They actually work very well given their low cost. What would be an approx cost to run 1000 similar parts like those? We have a product that will need to be injection molded at some point in the near future. .
I usually bill the press time out at $70 per hour and charge for the color batch and plastic stock if I don't have it. Do you have a mold or does that need made? Thanks for watching!
Hi , thanks for watching and your feedback. I think in this particular mold, cooling off the B side with water would probably give me short shots. I'm actually surprised that the mold temp didn't rise out of control on this run. Also, my water chiller may not bee able to keep up with cooling the molding machine if I went faster.
how many tons is that machine? not weight, but like 60, 100? once my new house is built i plan to get one, and want to produce cases maybe 2 thirds the size of that.
It is a 90 metric ton, 99 US ton clamp . It runs on 220V 3 phase 60 amps. I did run the 40 ton press with stepper drive motor at my house with a 30 hp rotary phase converter Gotta be sure you can handle motor inrush current if using an induction motor...
Be careful to keep your wedge angle as less as possible. Saw a mold with deep side walls with 40 degree wedge angles open the press on injection. I always made my cam pin angle 5 degree less than the wedge. Have seen cam actions lock when both are the same angle from heat expansion or close clearance cam pin holes in the wedge. You may want to add hardened wear plates under your wedges, also harden your slide retainers. The return, sprue puller and ejector pins function in aluminum flawlessly being nitrided, you want the same finish and hardness.
The Dryer is in the next room over. I think at that time I would load ~20 KG of plastic from the dryer into a hopper on the floor. The ABS needs to be dry, 165°F for 4 hours. Thanks for watching!
Fascinating Stuff. Being a 99 ton machine. Is that the clamp force? Im curious why such a high clamp force is needed? Is the injection pressure very high too? Ive only messed with those little hand injection molders...and they dont seem to require much force at all.
I think he states 20,000 psi in the video, which is within the normal range for injection molding (~10k-20k psi). That's a lot of pressure trying to push the mold open.
Are the waste parts at the beginning and waste plastic in the runners, flash and so on recycled? Do you grind them up and use it in future jobs? As I recently got a 3D printer, this is something I stareted to worry about, in order to reduce my environmental impact as much as possible.
I dont think one can easily do so. The plastic is in the form of pellets, and their size is pretty consistent. Also, plastic degraded when it is heated. And regarding your printer: I assume you don't go through a spool per week, so the plastic waste produced by it is irrelevant compared to what gets thrown away in cars (the entire dashboard is an injection-molded plastic part), appliances and packaging material. I'm not saying that you should be ignorant to the environment, but the amount of waste produced by support material is rather low compared to everything else. And if you worry about the environment, try to get the plastic to a recycling facility (preferably sorted by type), and make sure it doesn't get shipped to Africa. Same goes for old electronics.
@@vincentguttmann2231 Fortunately the recycling system is rather good here in Sweden. However, recycling PLA seems to be a bit of an issue, there doesn't seem to be many facilities capable of doing so. And yes, I'm sorting it by type (PLA and PETG so far).
@@VorpalGun well, yeah, PLA is very hard to recycle, but technically, it is compostable, meaning that it decomposes over years in a landfill, and turns back into lactic acid and so.
@@vincentguttmann2231 There seems to be some doubts about that, with some sources on RU-vid saying that it it only compostable at high (80 C) temperatures with special microbial cultures. So not in an ordinary landfill.
@@VorpalGun Well, according to some papers, PLA degraded best in an industrial composting unit, since its temps are higher, but if we wait ten years or so, an ordinary landfill will do the job just fine.
was there a particular point in the video that concerned you? The molding machine is triple safety interlocked ( mechanical, electrical and hydraulic) to prevent injury from standard operation
All of it! your standards are very poor. You explained your tool was 275kg then you continue to lift it on a winch where you can clearly see the markings along the jib for swl, then you go beyond it. You have your fingers behind the mould while is swinging about against the platen. That strap is absolutely ridiculous, requires a lifting bar. This is not a good example of how you safely change a mould. Its very poor.
Sir , compare to what we do , you guys mould in Stone Age era lol , but also very interesting tho ! wouldn't it be better to take backpressure off just to mould a 1st shot then before you send a Carriage back , you could get a 2nd stroke ready ?
It is a Boy 90 that is ~15 years old. The new ones have stepper motor drives and fancy controls. I have other videos showing the other 2 Boy machines in the shop
This guy is butchering some known plastic industry terms. Use FILL instead of SQUIRT, and AUGERS convey materials. Reciprocating SCREWS heat, blend, and meters a uniform fill to the mold. Also, the plastic held ahead of the screw is called the CUSHION and without a consistent cushion fill and part dimensions are compromised.
