Beaumont Technologies, Inc. received a note from Alan Rude, Two Shot Leader / Sr, Process Engineer for ARaymond:
The injection molding journey can be quite challenging as manufacturers try to navigate the perils of shear-induced heating and fill imbalances. Some companies are more well-prepared for this journey than others, and Quest Industries is at the forefront of knowing what resources they have at their disposal to achieve well-made plastic parts.
Sometimes, the costs you avoid can be more impactful than those you incur. This was the case for Plasti-Coil, a family owned injection molder in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, known for successfully molding tight tolerance and high-precision parts.
For years now the standard method designing a melt delivery (runner) system has been the naturally balanced runner system. A naturally balanced runner system is a runner configuration where there is an even flow length from the tip of the sprue to the end of each cavity with symmetrical cross-sectional shapes. While the naturally balanced runner system looks good from a visual standpoint, it is what lies underneath that leads to molding issues. This tech tip will explain the pitfalls of the naturally balanced runner system and how to avoid them.
“We tried for three months to balance a mold, and were feeling the pressure from our customer. BTI designed a MeltFlipper runner system that immediately caused all eight cavities to fill evenly, which quickly eased the strain on our customer relationship.
“Our customer was not happy with the core shift and air entrapment problems in their medical syringe parts produced from our four-cavity mold. We unsuccessfully tried to balance the molds by opening the gates and changing the size of the runner.
“After installing the MeltFlipper our runner system for a 16-cavity mold that had trouble holding ISO conical dimensions, we are now able to consistently run parts in spec. The MeltFlipper has made the validation of the molding process a breeze. The consistency of the MeltFlipper product has been great. What BTI’s organization has been able to come up with is so simple yet so complex that it is truly amazing.”
“The MeltFlipper technology has completely changed how I look at potential profitability. The benefits I am particularly interested in is cost reduction, a larger processing window, and quality improvement. With the MeltFlipper technology, I was able to use one 16-cavity mold versus multiple low cavitation tools, and enjoy a 28 percent variability improvement.
“Of all the training seminars that I have attended over the past 10 years, this one ranks at the top! The explanations of clamp tonnage, cooling strategies, viscosity, and key mold design components are just a few of the takeaways that will be very useful in my job function.”
“I was amazed at the amount of expertise and knowledge presented in just two days. Many myths were debunked, numerous scientific explanations for the way we should be thinking about plastic flow were given, and various real-world examples were used to show how plastic flows.”
