Child Plastic Sand Beach Bucket Injection Mold

What is plastic injection mold?

Plastic injection mold is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting molten material into a mold. Injection mold can be performed with a host of materials mainly thermoplastic and thermosetting polymers. Material for the part is fed into a heated barrel, mixed (Using a helical shaped screw), and injected into a mold 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, molds are made by a mold-maker (or toolmaker) from metal, usually either steel or aluminum, and precision-machined to form the features of the desired part. Injection molding 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 that do not melt during the injection molding of some lower temperature thermoplastics, can be used for some simple injection molds.

Parts to be injection molded must be very carefully designed to facilitate the molding process; the material used for the part, the desired shape and features of the part, the material of the mold, and the properties of the molding machine must all be taken into account. The versatility of injection molding is facilitated by this breadth of design considerations and possibilities.

Plastic injection mold is by far the most common way to produce large volumes of finished plastic parts for every kind of commercial and industrial use. Molten resin is injected under high pressure into the cavity of a metal die and then rapidly cooled, forming a solid shape. A single cycle to make a finished part may take anywhere from a few seconds to minutes depending on part complexity and size.

Plastic injection mold mass production process

Once your plastic injection mold tools are ready, the molding process consists of the following basic steps:

Step 1. The plastic resin comes in raw pellets. These are dried to the right moisture content, and then if necessary they can be blended with pigments or masterbatch colorants.

Step 2. The dried pellets are poured into the hopper of the molding machine. A reciprocating screw inside the barrel of the machine will transport these pellets toward the mold.

Step 3. Within the barrel, the pellets are mixed and heated until fully molten, forming the liquid resin.

Step 4. The heated mold closes automatically and resin, under great pressure, is injected through a gate and into the mold cavity.

Step 5. The mold is cooled to solidify the part inside.

Step 6. The mold opens and the part is ejected to begin a new cycle.

Plastic injection mold manufacture and project management

1. With customers' parts drawing (2D&3D) and specifications, we hold kick-off meetings with designers, engineers, and operation managers together to learn details and make memos for the projects.

2. After the customer's approval for DFM, they start the 2D layout & 3D mold drawing & Mold flow analysis in a short time.

3. During the process, a weekly report will be provided every Monday to make sure customers have all things under control.

4. For mold trials, we send the trial report with mold photos, samples photos, short shot photos, weight photos, molding issues, and our solutions.  Meanwhile, the molding video, inspection report, and molding parameter will be provided as fast as possible after. With customers’ approval to send samples, we send parts by express under SWY's account.

5. Mold corrections or modifications will be started at once after communication with customers. Normally, the second trial will happen within 3~7 days.

6. When samples get approved, we will prepare the final data for this tooling project in a memory stick including the final 2D&3D mold design, BOM, certifications, components, and mold details' photos (like electrical connectors, water fittings, core and cavity, shot counter, lift strap, etc) and any other requested information. At the same time, our production workers and engineers will clean molds and do double-check based on our mold delivery checking list before packing. The checklist has all the details and customers' requests so that we can inspect all according to it and make sure customers can have the molds that they wanted. SWY will use vacuum packing or anti-rust paper for transportation, we will use grease oil on the surface according to customers' requests and transportation methods (air, sea, or train).

7. For transportation including air shipping, sea shipping, train shipping, and express shipping, we arrange transportation and do related packing according to customers' requests and work tightly with customers' forwarders. And if customers want to use our forwarders, we also have very professional partners to help to export & import for many years. Their experience helped us a lot, we are sure the goods can arrive at customers fast and smoothly with their good service.

Fast response, smooth communication, and patience are one of SWY's advantages, some of our customers said we have the top class service level. During the whole process from pre-sales, and technical support to manufacturing, and shipping,  our skilled engineers and sales will be of your fast communication windows and strong support. Their 24/7 on-call service can give you a timely response to all your concerns and emergency. Even during holidays, you can find us and we can help you to solve urgent issues.

Factors affect the machining accuracy of molds

Mold processing designers must have rich experience in design and injection molding. For precision mold processing, the relationship between these factors and injection molding conditions and their apparent factors must be considered, such as injection pressure, cavity pressure and mold filling speed, injection melt temperature and mold temperature, mold structure, and gate type and distribution. The effects of the gate area, wall thickness, filler content in plastic, plastic crystallinity, and orientation are discussed. The influence of the above factors also varies with plastic materials or other molding conditions, such as temperature, humidity, continuous crystallization, and molding machine.

In the research on the relevant technical factors affecting mold processing, mold is the key to obtaining precision plastic products that meet the requirements of teaching quality management. Mold design, mold structure design, and whether the enterprise is reasonable will directly affect the quality of plastic products.

Because the injection molding process is the transformation process of plastic from solid (powder or particle) to liquid (melt) to solid (product). Precision dies processing, from particle to melt, and then from melt to product, through the action of intermediate temperature field, flow field, and density field. Under the joint action of these fields, different plastics (thermosetting or thermoplastic, crystalline or amorphous, reinforced or unreinforced, etc.). It has different polymer structures and rheological properties. All factors affecting the above “field” will certainly affect the physical and mechanical properties, size, shape, accuracy, and appearance quality of plastic products.

Due to the combination of process factors, polymers, structural forms, and plastic materials, the mold of the finished product will be displayed. As long as the mold processing master can be familiar with the previous relationship of these materials, plus the specific processing technology and drawings, a mold can be made.