Companies that use injection molds subject them to sudden changes in temperature, which leads to damage and breakage. Because of this, some care must be taken to prevent losses like these from happening and affecting the industry's production line; one of them is medical medium mold.
Components must be checked and replaced
Cleaning and routine maintenance should ensure these molds prolong their useful lives. In addition to these periodic reviews, some components must also check and, if necessary, replaced.
In molds where there are hot chambers, greater care needs regarding their resistances, thermocouples, torpedoes and temperature control modules.
A plastic injection machine is responsible for parts in molds
Therefore, it activates the electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic components of the mold. It causes the polymer in its solid state to pass through stages of high temperatures and, soon after, cooling.
Let's understand together why this stage of medical medium mold is so important!
What is injection mold cooling?
It is necessary to understand the techniques covered. What equipment needs for the cooling stage of plastic injection molds to happen efficiently.
When well used, this process generates a reduction in the costs of each piece produced. But with the differential and provide a superior quality, resulting in less expenses and greater excellence.
The plastic injection mold cooling system is fundamentally constituted by channels / circuits strategically. It locates in locations adjacent to the surface, where water with additives flows at low temperature, allowing the exchange of calories from the hotter to the coldest environment (similar to a refrigerator coil or car radiator).
Main objective of the cooling process of injection molds
The main objective of the cooling process of medical medium mold is to reduce the temperature of the part. If it molds in a homogeneous, agile and constant way, from the injection of material, until the moment in which the necessary solidity reach.
What directly influences this part to be molded is precisely the speed of this cooling, the result of good design engineering.
This means that: the exchange of heat from the mold is decisive in the performance of the plant.
First-rate machinery is responsible for quality medical medium mold
All this requires, in addition to qualified professionals, a first-rate machinery, as the quality of all productions will also depend on this.
To start the injection mold cooling process, it is necessary to follow the step by step:
- Load the raw material;
- Program the injection setup (temperature, speed, pressure, among other parameters);
- Assemble the mold and start the injection cycle.
The injection cycle consists of:
- Mold closure;
- Raw material injection;
- Repression;
- Plastification;
- Cooling (in parallel);
- Opening the mold and extracting the molded product, restarting this same cycle at each end.
Cooling takes place in parallel, from the beginning of the holding phase to the extraction of the medical medium mold. This step is also the most time-consuming in the cycle, so it must be very well designed so that there are no bottlenecks or problems in the product (such as dimensional variation or appearance defects).
Prolonging medical medium mold life
It is also worth noting that: a mold with an adequate cooling system takes advantage of its own maintenance of components and textured surface, if any, prolonging its useful life.
What is the importance of cooling injection molds?
In general, the importance of the refrigeration system can be summarized in 2 aspects: quality and efficiency.
1 - Quality
It is related to how well and “harmonious” the cooling of the raw material of what mold occurs, so as not to present dimensional defects (change in part geometry, for example) or medical medium mold appearance.
2 - Efficiency
The faster the mold cools down and extracts the solidified molded part, the faster it can restart and start a new injection cycle.
In other words, more parts per period of time will manufacture, as well as a reduction in raw material waste.
What is additive manufacturing?
Firstly, the technology is not recent, as it has been on the market since the late 1980s, but only in recent years have studies and research is more effectively apply and developed around additive manufacturing.
Today, its applicability is vast, with the plastics sector is one of the most active users of this medical medium mold.
Shape an object by a 3D digital model
Secondly, additive manufacturing is nothing more than a group of technologies that manufacture products through digital models. That is, layer by layer add in order to shape an object previously determined by a 3D digital model.
Advantages of additive manufacturing
Each 3D print has a characteristic when creating that product. For example: 3D FDM printing makes use of polymers as filaments in printers, widely uses in the plastics sector.
Advantages of medical medium mold in the plastics sector
- High customization power, which allows total freedom in the process of creating the design of the parts by plastic injection;
- Moreover, lower cost in the production of these parts, as it will be possible to manufacture in small quantities, thus reducing the unit cost;
- Similarly, greater sustainability with less use of materials and amount of waste;
- Furthermore, possibility of creating parts with greater number of details and complex geometries;
- Agility and efficiency, so that from the digital design to the creation of a prototype, this time is directly proportional to the quality of the final physical model.
Discover all manufacturing process
With additive manufacturing a medical medium mold can produce inside the machine from start to finish. This entire internal process is similar to that of a 2D printer, but the ink is replaced by a kind of powder, gel or some metal or plastic filament.
Discover the step by step:
1 - Digital modeling
Every process starts from a digital model, created by computer software. This creation should include all the actual measurements and design of the piece.
2 – Layered printing
Layering this digital model is the 2nd step. This process is necessary because 3D printers work layer by layer, giving shape to the medical medium mold.
3 - 3D printing
With all the steps above carried out, it's time to send this file to the 3D printer, which will make the project tangible.
Printing time depends on the size and complexity of the project
The caveat in this case is related to the size and complexity of the project, since the printing time will depend on these 2 factors, and it may even take days for the final printing.
How important is it for the plastics sector?
In conclusion, additive manufacturing is very important to enable medium and large-scale production of medical medium mold. For this, considerable initial investment is important.
