Do you know the steps of the injection mold manufacturing?
Generally, the injection mold process can be divided into five steps from design to mold testing, they are:
1. Structural analysis of the plastic products
Before mold design, engineers should inspect product drawings or samples to ensure the structure, dimensional accuracy, and appearance requirements of plastic parts. If there are some issues with the structure, we need to negotiate with clients to make a reasonable structural modification to the product.
2. Mold design
Mold design is the most important in determining product quality, reasonable mold design can reduce processing costs and shorten the molding cycle. To achieve a good mold design, the engineers have to review the product structure, and combine the properties of the metal and plastic materials, and generate a workable mold design.
3. Determine the mold material and standard parts
When selecting mold materials and mold accessories, it is necessary to consider the tolerance required by the product.
4. Mold manufacture and assembly
Mold manufacture and assembly are two factors affecting mold quality. First of all, to reduce the error in the mold processing, we should set the required tolerance scale by the actual needs on the molding accuracy. When necessary, we should proceed with quenching treatment for the mold core and cavity to ensure quality.
To solve the problem of product shrinkage in the injection molding, we should set 1/3of the product tolerance as the mold tolerance during mold processing, we will leave enough range for subsequent adjustment on the product quality.
5. Mold testing
The completion of mold manufacture and assembly does not mean that the projects have ended. For the performance of the mold during the molding process, we need to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the mold, such as molding, cooling system, and product quality. Through the inspection of the product, we can see whether the mold is available for mass production. If there are some problems, we should adjust the mold by the actual problem that appeared on the product until the product is fine with clients.
