Talk:Injection moulding

Overview image(image)

Added a overview of the Injection Molding Machine I can add anthing that you believe is missing and is imperative to understanding the process.--UofAIndustrialDesign (talk) 06:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

This area needs huge improvement. Take for instance the sentence " Plastic resin enters the mold through a sprue in the injection mold; the sprue bushing is to seal tightly against the nozzle of the injection barrel of the molding machine and to allow molten plastic to flow from the barrel into the mold, also known as the cavity." What is - a sprue bushing - nozzle of the injection barrel - injection barrel

Also, how is it possible to write an article on Injection Moulding without once mentions a Sleeve or a Rotating Core?

artificial flower (image)

sorry, but the given image does not show artiffical flower which has been made with Injection molding. that might be true for the green leaves beneath but the flowers itself are realy not a very good example for an mold making product. Adaso 14:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

On Spelling

I would disagree again. I am currently working for a plastic molding company in US, and we design, fix, and develop tooling CAD files for our customers (Intel, Panasonic, Gen-Probe, Crestron, Titleist, etc...), then we send the files to a Tooling, Molding factory in China and have their engineers look at them, make sure they are with in spec, then they proceed to make the tools and parts for us. I am sure Chinese technical expertise is not an issue in this industry.

I would disagree on the China bit. Most of the mould tools are made out there (it's cheaper to make them in China and ship them across to the UK, bizarrely). However, a lot of moulding still takes place in the UK - if memory serves, the Chinese don't have quite the technical expertise.

Anyway, the best article on injection moulding seems to be in Spanish....Ronaldson 11:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

As of June 8, 2006, Google.com reports: 1.9 million hits for "Injection Moulding" 5.7 million hits for "Injection Molding"

Just want to make sure we all know how language works - language is what people are using. It has always been this way, and it always will be that way. There is no "right way". The Queen's English is part of a repressive regime which most of the time only serves to accentuate class boundaries. This can stifle progress.

At the end of the day, we use what most people use. That means some things get left behind. Sorry, that's the way the world works. Using the minority spelling here is some kind of grab for respect, which, you know, you probably should get at home or something.  :)

Shouldn't this article be in Chinese anyway? Most of the world's injection molding is happening there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mlprater (talk • contribs) 14:51, June 8, 2006.

It seems to have been created that way, but there have been a couple edits to change mold to mould [1]. The split of how pages link to this subject is mixed, I count 45 through "mold" and variants, and 43 through "mould". Should someone just be bold? --GargoyleMT 20:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This got me too. I was wondering why the more popular (not to mention American, where Wikipedia originated and is hosted) is not used for this article. JettaMann 19:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

~"The Queen's English is part of a repressive regime which most of the time only serves to accentuate class boundaries."

~Ya got to love this guy's sense of humor. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.36.62.140 (talk • contribs) 11:53, February 1, 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be "humour"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.71.135.43 (talk • contribs) 02:25, March 18, 2007

I moved the page, following yet another mould -> mold edit. The numbers weren't as large as quoted above, for google results (1.39 vs 1.21), but I think this spelling is the more prevalent one. --GargoyleMT 20:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Reverted Change from Quickparts

Quickparts - Injection Molding is a commerical site. It contains no technical or informative resources. It has therefore, been reverted to previous revision. Does anyway see a reason why this link should be kept? BeastRHIT 01:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

beryllium copper

Since my last attempt at toning down the beryllium copper addition was reverted, could someone (perhaps the author) try an alternate approach? The addition seems to build up to the mention of a disease associated with machining the material, I'm not sure if it is intentional or not. I think this mold material (and the disease) have a lot more coverage than the other types, given its real world usage. However, my experience is limited, since I see mostly prototype tools made from Aluminum. --GargoyleMT 13:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Aluminum is used in prototype or limited run molds,it does not wear well over long periods, where as beryllium copper is found more commonly in proven production (high part count) molds. I will, however, agree that the passage pertaining to the 'disease' was somewhat tangiential. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.71.135.43 (talk • contribs) 02:27, March 18, 2007

Cavitation?

From the article... The number of "impression" in the mold of that part is refered to as cavitation. I work in the industry, and have never heard this particular term used. Generally we just refer to a mold having multiple cavities. Also, it doesn't seem to be supported by any of the online dictionaries. If someone can say for certain that this is indeed a proper usage of cavitation, I'll leave it alone, but if I don't hear back, I'll change it. NipokNek 18:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've only heard of them being "cavities." If the text is changed, the references to "core and cavity" will be a bit ambiguous; is there a better term to use in place of this one? --GargoyleMT 22:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've read it over, mentally removing the line about cavitation, and it's still seems coherent to me. I'm only talking about removing that one sentence, not every instance of "cavity." And as far as I know, there is no group term for multiple mold cavities. NipokNek 11:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

My question was a minor point, of "cavity" meaning both the negative of the part as well as one half of the mold, and whether a better term could be used to reduce confusion. As far as multiple cavity molds having a name, "family molds" are already covered. I've heard of multiple cavity molds of the same part being called "gang molds", but I'm not sure how widespread the use of that term is. --GargoyleMT 13:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

US Auto molders use "cavitation" as well. Mstefaniak (talk) 20:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I work in the both the area of mold manufacture and injection molding. Here in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, we commonly use the term "cavitation" as meaning "number of cavities". Your second point does point towards some ambiguity in the sense that "cavity" refers to the number of component impressions and to the female or negative mold section (normally injection side). I would suspect that people in the industry would have no trouble with the meanings in context, however in the interest of general understanding the terms "impression" for number of parts and "cavity" for negative mold section may be clearer. "Family molds" generally produce differing molded components per cycle and I would personally refer to multiple cavity molds of the same component as "multi-cavity" or "multi-impression". I have never heard the term "gang molds" used in Europe. Brianpmurphy 14:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Nomenclature

It would be nice if someone would show an exploded view of an injection mold showing the names of its parts.130.36.62.140 16:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

Good suggestion, I have access to some 3D models that I can dumb down for sake of simplicity and create some images with it. I however suspect that creating the correct nomenclature (naming) for parts is likely going to generate a large amount of discussion. (Cavity and core is jut the tip of the Iceberg). When it come to molds naming varies a lot from company to another, from a region of the world to another. If there is suggestion how to handle that part, I'd welcome them. Britiju 03:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Moulding Defect

I am unsure about the terminology Silver Sleaks vs Splay Mark. I always considered them the same things but I am having a second thought about it. At the moment I have seperated them because of my doubt. When it comes to Splay as a stand alone word, again, I always considered it the same as Splay mark, but it might be used as two different things by molders; Any thoughts? Britiju 03:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"Splay marks" are caused by a release of trapped water vapour in the injection process and are associated with hygroscopic materials which have not been adequately dried. Brianpmurphy 14:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Splay marks can also be caused by too fast an initial injection speed. AKA jetting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.71.135.43 (talk • contribs) 02:27, March 18, 2007

The description for splay marks sounds more like the defect for "Gate Blush." We always refer to splay as the streaks created by moisture in the material (also known as silver streaks). I think this description should be used, I wont do the edit myself though as I no longer edit Wikipedia articles (too much politics, it's like a poorly run nation...)

Needs consistent spelling, better grammar

The article should not flip back and forth between "mould" amd "mold". The grammar needs fixing, as in "machine are". Italics are needed for "use-mention" distinction. Chris the speller 05:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Britiju has been adding new sections, and I've been copyediting them once his edits have subsided. I cleared up the section you probably had issue with. I also changed "mold" to "mould" everywhere it seemed applicable. Does this address your concerns? --GargoyleMT 15:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to both Chris the speller and --GargoyleMT for help with the clean up of my newly added material. Since English is not my first language, I usually need several editing sessions to get things right gramatically (As close as it can be for me anyway). Keep up with this most appreciated help. Britiju 20:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If I change the meaning of anything you've put in, let me know (or correct it yourself). Your reorganization and expansion on this article is much appreciated. --GargoyleMT 00:47, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

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I was thinking that the fact that there is a possibility that the plastic such as polypropylene or polyethelene (due to the material, the temperature of the die, or the lack of percision in the temperature) may stick to the molding forcing the technician, chemist, or intern to set the machine on semi automatic and manually remove the mold from the machine. Speaking from personal experience.

External link

I was wondering why the link to http://www.custompartnet.com/wu/InjectionMolding was removed. I found it to be very informative. -mechen85

I'm with you, I perused it and it looks like a fine addition to the external links. I'm going to dig through the edit history and try to find the point where it was removed, see if I can uncover a reason you or I have missed. Kierkkadon (talk) 22:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Auger photo

This page would be improved by a picture of the auger from an injection molder. —Ben FrantzDale 19:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've moved this request to the injection molding machine page, because that's where it belongs. Wizard191 (talk) 14:28, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Help Needed: uppermost photo caption simplification

The first photo of the article shows a two piece die set which currently carries the following caption: "Standard two plates tooling - Core and Cavity are inserts in a mold base - "Family mold" of 5 different parts" .

Would the caption's author, or another person familiar with mold die design kindly clarify the caption's meaning for lay people reading the article? The current description is not clear. A simpler description is justified given that the photo is within the introductory paragraph of the article, and the article itself is a general introduction to the manufacturing process which is bound to be read by numerous lay people. Thanks if you can assist! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.47.191.132 (talk) 17:07, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

Can another person revert this caption to its previous state which was, "An injection molding die (both male and female pieces) used for makeing auto indicator lamps." --UofAIndustrialDesign (talk) 04:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Injection Molding Tool Class

In the United States at least, it appears that injection molding tools are roughly divided into 3 classes depending on overall quality. The notes I have are as follows:

• Class 101: Usually constructed with stainless steel base, cavities and cores. Life of greater than 1 million shots. Includes features like parting-line locks, and guided ejection. The most expensive class of tooling.
• Class 102: Constructed from softer steels, life of 500,000 shots.
• Class 103: Prototype-level tool. Made from non-hardened steels or aluminum. Short life. Cheap.

My source for this info is a training seminar I recently attended. I don't have any formally published sources. Is anybody else familiar with this nomenclature? Can we add this to the tool section, or should it have its own page? Thoughts? FusionKnight 15:34, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Possibe source for this information. FusionKnight 21:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Surface Finish

This [link] lists some of the available surface finishes for injection molded parts. I'll try and create a section on this. Does anybody else have any more info, or better sources? FusionKnight 17:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Injection molding machine

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was do not merge. Wizard191 (talk) 23:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

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I think this article doesn't cover anything that's really separate from the process itself. It should be integrated into Injection molding#Equipment Doodle77 (talk) 01:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Injection molding is already a 36k article, so I don't know if its really proper to add more to it. This seems like a decent start to what could be a big article. The info at injection molding could be merged into this article and then a nice little summary could be added. Wizard191 (talk) 12:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposition. Someone could check out http://www.custompartnet.com/wu/InjectionMolding#equipment . in all, i think that there is enough material on this topic to permit an independent existence. i'm not hinting at copying text from that page. all i'm stating is that there is enough material out there. Techniche.Writers (talk) 19:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed External Link

There is a website that has a brief overview of the moulding process - http://www.rutlandplastics.co.uk/moulding_process.shtml with links to other pages on the mould tool, materials and moulding machine. Also on the site are more deatiled pages on materials and design guidelines. I think it would be useful to add this to the external links. RPoracle (talk) 07:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Image gallery

I don't see what the problem is with having the image gallery. There are a lot of good images here of a die plus the finished part, of which there are no other images like that in the article. Moreover, it shows much more typical die that doesn't include side pulls. The other image that doesn't show side pulls has such fine detail that its hard to tell what the die is even for. Finally, it shows what a multi-cavity mold, another first for the images. Wizard191 (talk) 01:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to rewrite

This article contains a lot of great information, but it doesn't flow very well or feel completely encyclopedic. I'm considering completely rewriting it, consolidating a couple of sections, reorganizing the section hierarchy, that sort of thing. Turning the Process characteristics section in to prose and such. I don't want to eradicate any info, as I said this article is full of it. I just think it could be presented a tad better; this article seems like it's had a lot of people build it over a long period with little overall cohesion or cooperation. Any input would be welcome; I'll probably start it on my sandbox page (and of course I'll link to that once I do), and I encourage anybody with constructive additions and changes to make them there. As far as references go, fortuitously I have access to a good engineering library and so I should be able to verify and cite lots of content. Kierkkadon (talk) 16:31, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Note: I will probably leave every section after this one alone, because those sections are all very well written, with good content (including images and tables) and citations. If I do anything to them, it will just be to group some of the section headings underneath something like Injection molding process or similar. Kierkkadon (talk) 16:40, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I was dumb when I wrote this, the only part of this article that needed rewriting was Process characteristics. I have rewritten it, as well as added references to support it. I also reformatted all the references in the article to give a uniform citation style across the board: I used {{cite book}} , {{cite web}}, and {{rp}} wherever applicable, and removed the Sources section because it became irrelevant as a result of my changes. --Kierkkadon ^{talk/contribs} 17:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Picky picky non-sticky

Sorry to be picky, but in "Examples of polymers best suited for the process" it says all thermoplastics- but I'm not sure that PTFE can be injection moulded. Gravuritas (talk) 21:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Injection moulding

This is not "British" English:

• Australia [2]
• France [3]
• Ireland [4]
• New Zealand [5]
• Nigeria [6]
• South Africa [7]
• Thailand [8] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.13.103.75 (talk) 07:36, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

From the discussion above, #On spelling, it appears the page was moved to the mold spelling on the basis of google hits. This is not in accordance with policy when it comes to the spelling system to use in an article. I also see an argument that Wikipedia is American, particularly unacceptable reasoning. The relevant guideline is WP:ENGVAR, which advises to comply with the variety of English first established in the article. It was clearly created with this spelling. I propose to move it back to its original spelling. SpinningSpark 10:04, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Disclosure

Additions to Examples of polymers and Mould Design sections on 12/23/14

I added two external links to the website of my employer Toolcraft Plastics (Swindon) Ltd in these sections. Both links lead to useful webpages providing background information. One provides a list of common polymers and their suitability for certain projects; the other provides a list of common mould tool types and an explanation of what they are.SvanLeeuwen (talk) 11:00, 23 December 2014 (UTC)