Slideshow, Technology Showcase: Molds and Molding
Last month I was able to escape a nasty winter storm by heading to the warm west coast where many mold builders, molders and technology suppliers set up shop to show off their capabilities.
Sunny Anaheim, California was once again host to North America's largest annual design and manufacturing event.
Plastec West and MD&M West connected attendees with more than 20,000 engineers and executives, as well as hundreds of leading suppliers, across the advanced design and manufacturing spectrum who all understand the value in working together on the industry's cutting edge.
Diamond demonstrated a mold with a Roehr Tool dovetail collapsing core and a 3D printed stainless steel cavity block with conformal cooling. The increase in cooling and simplicity brought on by these technologies results in over a 50% reduction in cycle time on this true class 101 mold.
Custom Mold & Design manufactures and designing fully interchangeable, fast-cycling, high-precision injection molds, multi-cavity molds, two-shot molds, metal injection molds, silicone molds, micro-molds and ceramic molds.
Matrix specializes in close tolerance, plastic injection molding in 5 to 300-ton presses with a wide range of advanced materials including PEEK, LCP, PLA, PLGA, and other bio-resins. They also design, build, and qualify the precision mold tooling required to process these critical parts.
Metro Mold sees its ability to simplify complex manufacturing processes as another major milestone in its quest to redefine its role as an effective and valued supply chain partner.
M.R. Mold is an industry leader in the manufacturer of injection molds for liquid silicone rubber and plastics.
Wittman Battenfeld's MicroPower displayed in M R Mold's booth stands out by its extreme cost-efficiency, process reliability and speed. In this machine generation, the injection unit is of special interest. This innovative two-step injection unit, consisting of a screw and a plunger, with a shot volume ranging from 1.2 to 4 cm³, injects thermally homogeneous melt, with the result of premium-quality parts from absolutely stable production with short cycle times.
A class 101 four-cavity micro-mold in M R Mold's booth is self-contained with 2 bottom plates and 1 top plate which rotate on MicroPower’s rotary table. A robot removes the parts to a video scanner for inspection
A punctum plug manufactured from two-component liquid silicone rubber in a Wittman MicroPower 15/10 in M R Mold's booth.
MTD Micro Molding specializes in building molds for tiny parts with such complexities as 0.1-mm walls, 0.025-mm corner radii and holes as small as 0.051 mm in diameter. Read their profile here.
Nypro Mold's Foundations Program offers high-quality, production-like prototype tooling.
In the categories of design, manufacturing, distribution, and aftermarket services, Flex has established itself as a global leader without equal. With more than 100 sites in 30 countries, and 200,000 highly skilled innovators at the ready, the company is helping customers big and small solve the challenges of the connected age.
Pres-Tek Plastics Inc. offers mold trials, validations, and production molding.
Progressive Components offers inserted bar locks engineered for long-term alignment of very large molds.
Progressive Components showcased its large lifter and the five easy steps for assembly.
System Cooling from Progressive Components offers injection molders an exclusive and affordable solution for monitoring flow and temperature circuits within an injection mold.
Ewikon showcased maintenance-friendly nozzle options that allow in-press mainteneance and ease technician access.
The first commercial 3D printing solution based on an open platform, the HP Jet Fusion 3D Printing Solution produces quality physical parts, up to 10 times faster, and at half the cost of current 3D print systems.
Protolabs showcased its insert molding capabilities, and its quoting strategy, which involves interactive DFM feedback.
RobbJack showed off its A1-303 series carbide end mill that allows you to machine deeper parts, slots and walls in a single pass with minimal chatter and vibration. This tool is excellent for high speed machining. This series comes with polished flutes and Mirror Edge to eliminate chatter and vibration in high speed machining of aluminum and non-ferrous materials.
The Plastec West and MD&M West events combine to create a place where moldmakers and molders can see technology and show off their capabilities, and on the west coast during the cold winter season the rest of the country is hoping to escape.
The events provide a large collection of advanced design and manufacturing technology suppliers from 3D printing, injection molding, mold components, hot runners and more. This slideshow provides a glimpse of what I saw during the three days I attended both events.
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