Injection Mold Machine
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 มิ.ย. 2024
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Hey ! I work in injection molding, it's great to see small integrated solutions like these getting developped. The stepper for the mold being at max torque all the time makes sense for the holding pressure. 5 tons isn't much in injection molding ! The valve one is pretty silly if they use a shutter type valve, yes. There is one simple way to see if grain size is the problem with your auger... Buy a blender and try to grind it and feed it smaller pellets !
EDIT : Also, nylon is extremely hygroscopic. It needs to be pre-dried if the bag has been left open for some time. It causes it to exsudes water when it gets heated and it becomes "sticky"
Do you need to post process the injection molded nylon pieces like exposing them to humidity ?
Yes absolutely love any small scale manufacturing videos. This is the first time I've seen a desktop injection molding machine and it was very cool.
With regard to your third problem with the pellets of plastic hanging up in the feeder. My background is in mineral processing, which is almost all involved with moving granular materials around. A rule of thumb for design of systems handling granular materials is that no openings should be smaller than 3 times the size of the largest dimension of the largest particle. So you will continue to have problems unless you can reduce the size of the glass filled nylon pellets or increase the pitch spacing of the flights on the feed auger of the injection molder. Either solution could be difficult to implement unless the nylon resin is available in a smaller pellet size.
Very useful comment! Just designing my own injection moulding machine with auto feed from a larger hopper. Makes total sense, due three particles can not stuck up on each other - most likely.
Having worked with Industrial size Injecting mold machines before. The augers are at least 100 times the size of the pellet.
Then again the machines were the size of a small living room :-) It was tedious as hell operating even those.
Finally someone with knowledge and experience. That auger is way to small for those pellets, just my thoughts.
THANK YOU for being upfront about costs, really helped me plan ahead for my ideas, 3d printing won't even come close to what I need(small moving parts)!
What a fantastic machine! That should be great for your knife! I designed a few of those knifes in the past and the slider was always incredible time consuming to cut. It just has to many features and needs to be smooth. So your injection moulding idea should be great for that.
This was a great video. You guys work well together, and the last 4 minutes were very entertaining. Reading the comments and responding like that really creates a conversation with your audience.
Wait, you spent $12K on a machine that has a non-working auger and two stepper motors that aren't programmed properly?? Feels like a bit of a rip off...
It's literally just a couple plates held together by 4 rods and a few springs. idk why it costs 12K
@@henrychan720 to be fair the injection auger/heater assembly has to be pretty precise and made of super durable materials. The software for UI and machine control is a bit of development work...The rest is jellybean off the shelf parts.
You can buy a working low hours 2000s machine that shoots 2-5 oz for that price. If you wanna get into plastic injection, simply buy a table top plunger style machine.
@@henrychan720 sounds like you should undercut the market and introduce your own superior machine for less.
I'm sure that you and you alone know more than an entire industries worth of professionals, so get to it!
@@DrewLSsix He's right, though. It's one of those examples where something is expensive mostly because the people who buy it can afford it. In terms of parts, I can guarantee you that this machine didn't cost more than 2000$.
THAT WAS FANTASTIC! So much good experience/information stuffed into a tight package, with little-to-no time wasted. Thanks!
I used to do this for a living when I worked for Fullarton, I remember picking out and juggling the hot parts - you could wear gloves but you'd lose dexterity, and you had to quickly carve off small rough edges, watch for shorts and stuff - the moulds would start to break down after prolonged use so you had to examine them.
Your hands develop a roughness after a while, i did a lot of different things for that company, from operating steel presses to QA testing IBM and Compaq machines...my time in the plastics factories was probably the most memorable, it was a tough job but it was kinda comfy back then.
Nice to see the injection molding machine in action!
Open up that feedscrew to let more pellets in. The flight doesn't have to be as thick, so you could just machine down the thickness without having to make a whole new part.
Or use smaller pellets. That's the easiest solution to see if it is the pellets simply getting jammed in. It looks like you guys bought 4 mm pellets - try 3 or 2.5 mm for a couple of runs and see if that clears things up.
I'm an engineer working in the plastics industry and I design machines that are upstream of the process you guys are involved with now. Really liked the video. Having my own shop to design and ultimately fabricate my ideas is the ultimate dream.
Could easily be twice as long as still fascinating!
Give us all the nerdy details, there's not a lot of coverage on this topic and I'd love to learn more
I work in injection molding with some significantly larger machines.
the flights on your feedthroat screw are too narrow (your theory is correct). Make the flights wider to drive the resin pellets to the feed the feed section of the molding machine.
Alternately, a reprocating cyllinder with a plunger can handle wider variety of material & utilize gravity fed, hopper not the screw auger
Are you drying your material at all?
Your mold and machine has little to no forced cooling cooling, Interim solution -- consider using compressed air rather than a designated thermolator/chiller setup.
I'm watching on a one plus 7, and I definitely appreciate the aspect ratio.
Fantastically useful video. Thanks for showing the faults and solutions.
Very intesting. I saw this machine at the PRI show last December, please keep posting about this.
I'm a mold designer (mechanical engineer) by profession. @ 14:28, I immediately saw 2 major issues with your mold design. You are gating in the wrong location. Generally, gate at the thickest part of your molded part, not in the thinnest areas as you have. Gating incorrectly results in more short shots (defective parts that did not fully fill out the cavity). Also, you might want to find a way to grind the parting line of your mold, both halves. This will reduce flash.
been looking at this machine for a couple of years. hope you keep at it and get it perfected! good luck
When molding with PA66 you need to keep the material dry! Put it in about 170C for a few hours to drive the water out before molding or you will have a hard time to keep the filling consistent.
On large injection machines that have thermal couples spanning ~10 foot on the auger system you can easily run just fine without drying it. They could extend the auger system and put thermal couples on it to pre-melt the pellets driving out the moisture in the auger system.
The Morgan Press is a long established prototype injection molding machine. I had one years ago and used it successfully. They cost something like $30K. I have seen them on ebay for a lot less. It would be easier to home build it has no motors. You can buy a used real injection machine for $10k or less. It will do a lot more. After the Morgan I bought a real machine to replace it. I have two Full size machines now. One is for sale. There are lots of books on molding get some to educate yourself and save time. I have a dozen or more. We have made a dozen or more homemade molds and use them regularly. I have never had mold built outside.
I work in injection moulding mainly high end automotive! Found this really interesting as never seen desktop style, I get involved in rubber bump stops to bumpers! But with the injection mould tool look into venting on the mould, cartridge heaters to get some temperature into the mould, bedding the tool out to fix the flash.
With the screw look at charging the dimensions and pitch! Hope it goes well though, looks like your learning a lot!
Thanks! Is there any value in a variable pitch on the auger? Was thinking that might be less likely to get stuck but I actually have no idea 😂
@@wileecoyoti it’s hard to say really on most injection mould machines normally the dried material is just fed into the main barrel feed screw using gravity and screw turns to pick it up, this screw then changes dimensions within the barrel to condense and heat it, maybe there is not enough pressure or weight from the material above driving it down. Sorry not the best help never seen a feed system like this but understand it in principle due to the size of the press. I would try a more aggressive pitched screw in my opinion but don’t the main reasons material doesn’t pick up in my experience is speed of the screw too fast or to slow when trying to fill
Love the injection mold info! It’s all black magic to me. 🤘🏼
super following! I have been researching about benchtop injection molding machines for a while. I would love to see more videos on molding with this machine!
Very cool and interesting. Injection molding is a topic we haven't seen much on youtube about. Everyone is just like it's hard and expensive. Looks what your doing is quite reasonable. Not every mold needs mirror perfect finishes or needs to last for a million parts.
You can buy a working low hours 2000s machine that shoots 2-5 oz for that price. If you wanna get into plastic injection, simply buy a table top plunger style machine.
Change the feeder screw to have a small taper on the sides instead of straight square threads. I think that will reduce sticking. Also they are easier to make.
beatmetoit...
actually small draft angle could be machined... ig that should solve the problem
We offer a new hopper screw with a new design that performs much better and is more efficient.
Well, I liked the injection molding video. I know squat about it and I’m glad to learn watching you learn. But now I’m takin’ a good close look at my knife when it gets here!
Great video... Can't get enough of nitty-gritty details... 👍
Once you guys get some more experience with injection molding I'm curious how its learning curve compares to learning cnc machining or manual machining and other machining techniques
Watching on a 49" Ultrawide and I am LOVING the ratio! 😂👍
I had to put my phone on landscape mode after this comment :// 😁
This is awesome. Same here
Wow this is so helpful for understanding the design considerations for a mold. Thankyou
For your third problem, polishing the screw and cooling down the entry channel (much like on industrial IMs) will resolve your issue. Good vid, ty!
This is pretty cool, I've seen similar ideas for desktop injection molding.
Im working with injection molding machines and I have to say that for 12k you could get a 1000x better used industry machine like a small Arburg. Much better camping force, better homogenization of material and overall more reliable. However you do need more space and power too probably
Thank you for Heavy Metal Unicorn T-shirts feels like we've been waiting for ever.
I'm applying to work at a place that does injection molding in this video will help me look a lot more proficient or at least give me an edge over other applicants without prior experience thank you
I learnt so much watching this thank you.
With a constant sized auger how does the feedramp to the heating cylinder look? How do it build feed pressure and prevent backflow to the hopper?
Awesome video - very interesting topic with very little coverage on YT. Thanks a lot for sharing
How can anyone release a machine into production with such obvious issues like overheating motors?
My thoughts exactly, it almosts seems that these days lots of companies use the end users as beta testers...
@@HeimoVN and there you have your answer.
R&D is way more expensive (and less income generating) than using the early customers as R&D department.
Long story short is that they probably didn't realize how much different the ambient temperature would be in an un-air-conditioned shop in Florida. As far as I can tell they're a small group developing these and, well, any new product takes some time to find all the bugs. Having worked at a multi billion dollar company I saw far worse "oops" things come back from the customer. They seem passionate about these things and I expect they're going to continue to stand behind it and keep improving.
@@mandem9319 Yeah- Assumed the same.
I don’t think it’s that weird when you consider how no production company would purchase a machine like this. The economies of scale don’t line up.
This machine is made for hobbyists and maker spaces. And small companies where it’s more about the joy of learning multiple manufacturing systems.
That Tormach 1100M isn’t operating while filming dialog because they aren’t running a for-profit company. Or a least not based on revenues from manufacturing. If one guy works 40 hour weeks the machine is running 24% of the time. 24% duty cycle is probably on the upper limit of what the customers of the injection machine actually run.
The machine looks like my Chinese clone of a prusa i3 3d printer and probably as much of a hassle to use.
I find all this very interesting. I like that your showing all the trial and errors along the way. And that this whole process isnt as simple as it may appear at first glance.
Looking forward to seeing future videos.
For the issues your having, they all remind me of similar issues I had with my first kit 3d printer. When you mention the first two being related to a firmware issue with the holding torque causing them to over heat. I have a suspicion with the new update (assuming they fixed those issues) may possibly solve your 3rd worm screw issue.
Or possibly try a smaller pelt size, toss in a blender maybe to maybe them more random in size if that's of any benefit. Or possibly some sort of a lubricant to prevent binding up. I know some 3d printer users try lubricating their filament so it slides easier in the Bowden tube. Weather that's snake oil or not maybe something true for injection molding with pellets.
Just some thoughts and loved the whole process/video can't wait for an update
First time viewer. Came for the injection molding, stayed for the comment response. Probably will do again 😂
It was good to learn along with you. Vicarious learning is the easiest so thank you for the video.
Love this series, keep them coming.
Have you considered scrapping the injection molding machines stock controller with a LinuxCNC based controller?
Magic bullet or ninja blender the pellets to reduce their size or, increase the space between the auger flutes. I was reminiscing about the days of having to clean out granulators damn screens. Always had to use something to poke each hole clean. So tedious and time consuming. Spent ten years in injection molding, I miss that stuff! Machines so large, you could live in them.
BTDT. 13 years.
Been waiting for this one and super interested in this topic and following along.
Water or air cooling your hopper throat would help a lot. Plastic will warm up and stick in the throat so cooling is essential. While you’re at it hook cooling lines to your mold to keep your molds at a constant temperature. To help with flash you can add venting to the mold.
could you adapt the feeder screw to a smaller pitch to prevent pellets from getting jammed (but you know this) or use a key with a wedge to clear it as it feeds.
Very Interesting topic and machine. If the Steppers Have drivers there most likely is a dip switch for Half Current. If the Auger were polished it may move down better. Great stuff
The real question though, does the injection molding machine run linuxCNC?
Ouch!!!
Nope it's a windows tablet, probably runs all the logic and then sends G code commands via USB to some 3D printer style board with couple of drivers
@@Arek_R. Just a reminder. This is not a 3D printer. So there is no G-code. No LinuxCNC. All firmware and software are built in-house in Cincinnati.
@@APSXLLCTH-camChannel That's still not an excuse to release untested product.
Great work.
I would like to see more on that mold
Great video! Too short. Definitely want to see more and more details. Looking forward to see the motor cooling. Regarding your molds: If you polish your mold cavities and put in just a hint of draft parts will probably come out easier. They look kind of rough now.
Any heat creep reaching the auger? Also, does the auger motor just keep turning when it is jammed? My guess is the pellets just aren't sliding well due to how they are manufactured. Probably not an exact size, so tweaking thread size may be futile.
Keep the injection molding videos coming!
The 5 tons closing force determine the maximum area of the injected part at the parting line. The injection pressure tries to force the mold open, so if the area is too large, you get flashing or even spills.
The maximum injection pressure is relevant when molding very thin parts or using some plastics. The easier it flows in a molten state, the less pressure is needed.
For the machine itself, maybe a toggle link for the movable jaw would have been better, higher closing forces with less motor torque.
We draw polish every mold, it helps to let go of the part when it's ejected and it leaves a nice finish. Another thing for your part, does it have any draft on the side walls? You need a bare minimum of half a degree of draft. Also, your ejector pins are doing their job, but you're still grabbing the part. To combat this, we will either cylce the ejection up to 3 times, or run an air blast, blast of air that turns on and knocks the part off. Your material also needs a specific moisture content, we have material driers for that specific reason... Also venting, normally done with a surface grinder or a really nice mill. It's a small .25 to half inch wide groove on parting line. Depending on your material will depend on the depth the of the vents. With ABS we can get away like .0015 but with nylons and thinner materials, it's normally about .0007 deep. It's the let the air leave the mold when the plastic is entering. You could also do venting by milling in some pockets outside of the cavity, and put some blocks in that pocket that are just a little thicker than the pocket you milled, that will keep the mold apart just to let it vent.
You may want to dry that nylon. Nylon absorbs moisture like crazy and can lead to issues with part quality and may make parts brittle.
I've never worked with a tabletop machine of this type. Most use hydraulics.
VERY interested in more videos. Always awesome to learn.
My first though with that auger is (and I'm no expert *AT ALL* on these sorts of things) would it help if the cross section of the auger's inclined plane were not rectangular but rather tapered? That would create a pair of divergent walls that the pellets couldn't (or at least would be less likely) to jam up in, wouldn't it? I'm thinking more like a conventional thread and less like an acme thread.
The stepper motor driver should have a mode that shorts the windings to mostly clamp the position while drawing no current. I can't remember if it is the sleep or enable pin. It might not be enough clamping torque to hold back the spring if the ball screw is back drivable. Heatsink and active cooling will be good regardless if you try to get your rate up
Awesome channel! My work just purchased a tormach 1100 and we're thinking about this injection molding machine. With the layout of the aluminum mold, is it possible to make a plastic handle for a screwdriver metal shaft sticking out of it? Possible video idea to show us your version?
Just popped up in the recommended. Thought you were bill burr when you jumped on screen! Try changing your pellet diameter as a quick test to see if the auger still gets clogged.
Was there ever a firmware update to correct the issue with the full voltage on the steppers? I purchased one of these machines for my School and it works well but those steppers get very hot.
Would it be possible to use a blender to blend the pallets to reduce their size?
As soon as you mentioned 21:9, I realized, then enjoyed the rest of the video in fullscreen on my Acer X34 😎
Love these videos! Also, a variable geometry screw will help with feeding. Consider 3D printing some augers to test geometries under low load/off the machine.
Edit: Also, how about that equipment in the back yard?
PA: If your looking at this wondering why you didn’t build one...
Me: Erm.... So now you can read my mind 😳
This guy is so easy to listen to!!!
Really nice video!
About the mould design, if you use manual inlays which you have to remove from each part by hand, you will be still faster than clamp, machine + post process every single part I assume.
Whats the expense to contract out an injection molded part like that? I always thought injection molded products were fairly cheap (assuming you had the mold).
Great video, very interested in seeing more like this.
I have a 33 ton Cincinnati milacron I bought for $900, I like the concept of these desktop units but the cost is outrageous
This was an awesome video! Loved it... please make more
Both those guys are so easy to listen to.
Very interesting Video, thanks a lot for explaining !
I’m looking forward to more injection molding videos
Would spherical plastic beads work better than cylindrical? Many years ago I worked in a factory that made shopping carts and I remember the plastic being spherical.
What kind of purging compound do you guys use?
@Physics Anonymous try a vibrator on the auger housing. That should help with the feeding
To rectify your auger issue try using a tapered auger. Were the space between the auger walls are slanted and the plastic pellets would not be so easily wedged or jammed.
13:28 did you leave clearance between the aluminium plate and the ejector pin face?
I agree with Andy. I work with this material daily and It should be dried. For GF nylon I'd suggest 220° for 4 hours before running. Should you like to try some different material types I'd be happy to send you some samples.
What advantage does this method have aside from high volume?
Can you polish the auger and put a slight taper from center to outer diameter so the pellets can move freely?
I commented with basically the same before seeing yours. I think it will help considerably. Any movement on the taper will cuase it to fall out. I guess there is some risk of just jambing into the wedge shaped groove more tightly though.
Please consider adding venting to the cavity of your mold somewhere approximately opposite the gate to allow the plastic being injected to push the air in the cavity out of the mold. If you need additional info on this or other aspects of mold design please ask.
Are you going to incorporate some sort of die cooling to cool the die? I would imagine after 200 parts the thermal conductivity of the aluminium would take up the heat making the cooling time longer.
To avoid pellets getting stuck, increase the flute length or in other words increase the heating zone length. Also, flutes have to have chamfer at core diameter.
For next step into IMM search a used Arburg or Krauss-Maffei, they start on 35tn of clamping force and they are ready for non-stop production. Autodesk Moldflow could give you a simulation insight, avoiding so much prototyping...
Boy make some nice small machines too.
Best video yet
Is there a taper to the auger? If it’s just a square edge cut it would bind and clog. Internal augers usually force their contents out toward the wall of the funnel. Additionally a more aggressive pitch might help. You have a CNC. Make some sample augers and see what works!
A simple 2-part Aluminium mould like this is
SPI Class 101 mold with hardened polished steel parts that will last 1M parts with side actions, cooling channels bubblers etc. Hot runner designs probably more. Large automotive molds, much more.
@@spehropefhany What you just described is a 100k+ mold.
you know how many microsoft engineers it takes to change a light bulb ? Here is the same. Whatever machine tool you need to purchase, there is a hundred people behind.
do it yourself, and save million$.
also i think the biggest cost is the milling, the machines they use are very expensive, but the same result can be achieved with the $200 cnc machines on ebay, that they will never tell you. these tiny machines cannot mill as fast as the big ones, but they can achieve the same finish, maybe not the same precision but still, for plastic parts you dont need micrometer precision, 0.01mm is good enough, depending on the target product. lets say if you wanted to make toy parts, thats ok, also 3d printers nowadays reach 100 microns, which is 0.01mm, and this is achieved with inexpensive rails/step motors/lead screw or whatever variations.
i have seen so much american youtubers, if not all of them criticizing chinese metals, machines, tooling in general. While it is true that country is filled with scammers of all sorts, there are also legions of serious businesses, arent apple products made in china, in my house i dont see any device where it is not written "made in china" behind, whatever the brand is, on the back there are these 3 words, the truth is that china has all the manpower, all the materials available, and thus can build everything on their own ground without requiring transport/taxes from foreign countries, also they do not bother with intellectual property and eliminate 80% of the cost of a product for this reason. i dont believe the west can survive to that on the long term, they will have 2 choices : 1) war, 2) change their mentalities and adopt a new way of life. i dont see any reason to use american products if a chinese one does the same thing without crumbling after a few uses.
This machine would be for small quantity sample runs. A mold-making toolroom might use this. I think even then they would use something like an ARBURG or BOY machine. You should look into getting either one of these. Small and many out there used and cheap.
Thanks for the video!
Yes, very cool stuff.
I've done 3d printed injection molds out of the form labs with PPE. Way cheaper for quick change molds you are doing until you have figured out all the settings.
THIS IS SO COOL!
Awesome video as usual guys. Love your idea about the inside molds using their blank molding support, thats best without always making the holding system everytime. Keep up the good work. It seems to be a nice machine but sadly for you it seems that machine wasn't ready for the market and looks to be still in Beta-Alpha version. I hope you have good support from the manufacturer. It's kinda bad when you know it was about 6.5K$ during kickstarter campaign and might haven't got so much better even with double price. I hope they back their products. It seems a decent low production injection machine but still have flaws like you shown us. Greets from Canada. 👍✌
What about using recycled plastic chips?