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(From left to right) Craig Simmermon, D-M-E sales representative, and AIMMco owners Lloyd Booth, Barry Waatti and Glenn Hendrickson who are showing off their Lightning Base^TM product line at the Woodland, WA facility. Image courtesy of AIMMCO and D-M-E.

A patented standard mold base—the Lightning Base—uses one common base with interchangeable inserts for various parts, which allows for quick interchangeability of inserts without removing the mold base from the press.

This mold base was developed by Advanced Injection Mold Manufacturing Company (AIMMCO, Woodland, WA)—a manufacturer of plastic injection molds, die cast molds and blow molds—as well as a producer of “quick turn” molds, which are produced with tight leadtimes.

According to AIMMCO's Marketing Manager Barry Waatti, the increase in over-seas competition coupled with the need for quick turn tooling led the company to design this mold base. “We sat down with the owner and discussed ways we could produce tooling quicker and with less cost, and still have flexibility with components to produce a quality tool,” Waatti recalls. “It took about six months. This base provides a carrier and insert system that allowed the moldmaker to have more flexibility than what was currently being offered,” he notes.” AIMMCO sells this base to other moldmakers.

The Lightning Base features parting line top locks, guided ejection, multi sprue and knockout locations, multiple water line locations, wedge locks for positive alignment and tolerance allowance on insert size, ejector locks and spring-loaded return pins. Photo courtesy of AIMMCO.

Leadtime Reducer
“The Lightning Base incorporates many quality features such as parting line top locks, guided ejection (in the base), multi sprue and knockout locations, multiple water line locations, wedge locks for positive alignment and tolerance allowance on insert size, ejector locks and spring-loaded return pins to allow for different parting line gap, wedge locks for positive alignment and tolerance allowance on insert size,” Waatti explains. “The design will accept a wide variety of tooling—ranging from prototype, P-20 inserts, heat-treated inserts, stripper plates, three-plate, hot-tips, slides, lifters, etc.” These mold bases are available in any size to fit small or large parts.