Popular Posts: February 2020

How to Use a Conformally Cooled Sprue Bushing to Reduce Cycle Time and Ease Cost Pressures

Midwest Mold Services Inc. (Roseville, Michigan) builds prototype and production tools with both aluminum and steel alloys for injection and compression molders. The shop recently produced a 1+1 injection tool for an automotive molder, which was tasked with producing a low-volume spoiler seal in a thermoplastic vulcanizate (TPV). As is nearly universally the case in automotive, the molder was under tight pressure from its OEM customer to reduce cost. Although the tool worked well, the molder asked if the Midwest team could suggest ways to reduce cycle times to help ease cost pressures. The molder already had tried different TPVs to see if a material change could help. The challenge was that a single large cold sprue fed a cold runner, which in turn fed two cashew gates to produce two seals per shot. While not especially large, the 9 by 3-inch/23 x 8.0 cm seals were contoured parts with geometry and featured four insert-molded polyamide 6/6 (PA 6/6, also called nylon) fasteners per cavity. The 0.31-inch/7.94-mm diameter sprue was 4x thicker than the seal, whose nominal wall was 0.0-inch”/2.0 mm. Hence, cooling the sprue became the rate-limiting step, making it difficult to shorten molding cycles and eject parts faster without causing stringing from the still-cooling sprue.

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Additive Tooling Goes Beyond Conformally Cooled Inserts to Simplify the Mold Build Process

As tooling complexity increases, it is necessary to explore ways to simplify your mold-building process, and that is where additive manufacturing can help. Conformal cooling remains the most common application for additive manufacturing in mold building and molding because it helps eliminate hot spots in molds that can lead to longer cycle times and part defects. However, maybe it’s time you consider other ways to apply additive manufacturing in your mold building process.

Following are three alternate applications for additive tooling. Additive tooling can be made out of metal, specifically tool steel, and is used to produce high-volume class 101 molds; it can be a sub-insert that goes into a larger mold or mold base; and someday it will involve the production of complete mold plate cavities that form plastic parts.

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Cutting Through Machining Challenges in 15-5 PH Stainless Steel

Carbide cutting tool manufacturer Tungaloy America Inc. recently partnered with machine tool supplier Toyoda Americas Corp. to showcase its latest offerings designed for accelerated machining of precipitation hardness stainless steel. The lunch learning seminar was held at Toyoda’s Arlington Heights, Illinois, facility.

During the seminar, the material referenced was 15-5 PH stainless steel. A growing market focus on higher material performance and functionality is making metal machining even more challenging, according to Tungaloy. A premature, catastrophic tool failure is a typical failure mode in machining difficult-to-cut exotic metals like 15-5 PH stainless steel due to heat generated during machining.

Read the complete article here.