Polymers have come a long way in the past 20 years'they're so versatile that they can replace metal components in many applications. This has a host of benefits for you, but one of the biggest advantages is that plastic parts can lead to cost savings of over 25 percent. One of the main processes to produce plastic parts is insert molding, a process not known to many people!
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Read on to discover five reasons to choose insert molding for plastic parts and explore a basic overview of what insert molding is.
The term 'insert molding' requires an understanding of each word. If you know anything about injection molding, you know that it's a process in which molten plastic is injected into a mold with a particular shape. When the molten plastic cools and becomes released from the mold, it holds a particular shape.
Plastic functions in the same way in insert molding. It is injected as a hot liquid into a mold with a particular shape, then cooled until the liquid becomes a solid. However, this process introduces a new concept into the mix: the insert.
The insert is exactly what it sounds like'it's a non-plastic part that is inserted into a mold so that the plastic and non-plastic will become bound together. Think about a pair of scissors. Most of the time, you'll have two metal pieces connected by a plastic handle. The metal pieces are the inserts, while the plastic is created by molding.
Insert molding is an incredibly precise process. The plastic and the inserts need to be exactly aligned so that everything comes together properly. It takes a highly advanced facility, like the one at Polymer Molding, to ensure everything goes off without a hitch.
If you've ever heard of insert molding, you may have also come across the term 'overmolding.' Even though these processes may sound similar, it's important to understand the distinctions that separate them.
Whereas insert molding uses a non-plastic part and molded plastic, overmolding uses plastic at all levels. In other words, one component of a product is produced using injection molding, and an additional layer of plastic (or potentially multiple layers) is molded over that first one. After two or more layers, you're left with a finished product that's the result of overmolding.
Either option will result in a high-quality product, but they produce much different results. While you cannot produce scissors through overmolding, you can make something like a vibration-dampening device for automobiles or tools.
With all that said, knowing how a process works isn't the same as knowing why you should use it. Let's take a closer look and examine the many benefits of insert molding for your component creation needs.
One major advantage that you'll experience when choosing insert molding is durability. When you work with parts that have precise tolerances, you also work working with components that are far more reliable than you could hope to experience with other processes.
Let's return to our scissor example from earlier. If you don't work to ensure the plastic housing that holds the metal shears is formed exactly to the shears, you're liable to experience shifting when the scissors cut. This leads to less reliable scissors and may even present dangers for your customers. When tolerances are tight, you don't need to worry about things going wrong.
In addition, by removing the assembly step of the production process, you're leaving less space for human errors to occur. Any time you rely on people to put your products together, you may experience unexpected results, even if you work with a fantastic producer.
The world is in a constant march toward smaller and thinner products. Do you remember what iPhones looked like back in the late s? Things used to be much chunkier, but now, size is a drawback. When you produce your components with insert molding, you can shrink your overall products without sacrificing the durability of the components.
Consider all the plastic components of a car interior. When you shrink down the depth of car doors and dashboards, you expand the interior of the car, allowing the driver and passengers to enjoy more room.
Some people are inclined to make everything out of metal. While that may sound good on paper, you need to consider the overall weight of your components. Switching a few parts here and there from metal to plastic will greatly reduce the weight of your product. Just as the world moves toward smaller products, it is also moving toward lighter products.
When you design something that's lighter, you improve usability, functionality, and performance. In addition, you cut down on your shipping costs!
Speaking of cutting costs, have you seen how much metal costs to purchase and work with? Plastic is the more economical choice by far, and you won't need to sacrifice performance for savings! While you may assume that metals are far stronger than plastics, there are many plastics that have incredible strength.
If you've heard the phrase, 'time is money,' you probably already have an idea of why insert molding is a great choice for you. Waiting for people or machines to take two separate parts of a product and combine them means that your customers need to wait that much longer before they can buy your product. Insert molding saves time, therefore saving you money.
When you need custom-molded plastic parts, Polymer Molding is the place to be. We can help you determine whether standard injection molding, overmolding, or insert molding will be the best option to get the results you're after.
Now that you know these five reasons to choose insert molding for plastic parts, consider Polymer Molding for your next product. Reach out to our team to discuss the design process of your custom-molded plastic parts. We can help you figure out the best material for your product and provide you with a quote! Contact us today to learn more.
First, first introduce what is called insert?
Insert is a term for mold. It specifically refers to mold parts used for inlaying in mold core in mold. Inserts can be square, round, sheet. Like all mold parts, requirements for precision are very high. Generally there is no finished product, which can be customized according to needs of mold.
Types of inserts: pins, inserts, columns, rings, etc .;
Material: SKD61, SKH51, ASP23, SKD11, etc., or same material as corresponding mold core;
Hardness: above 50HRC;
Standard accuracy: ± 0.01mm, depending on specific mold accuracy requirements.
Second, then question comes, under what circumstances do we need to make inserts?
1. Save mold materials
Everyone knows that when ordering mold material, a piece of steel with a relatively regular shape is ordered. However, material of front and rear molds is determined by the highest point, so whether it is front mold or rear mold, if one part is relatively high relative to other places, height of mold core can be reduced by making inserts in this place, so that mold core does not need to be ordered so high, thereby saving mold materials.
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2. Easy to modify
Where mold is often modified, it can be dismantled to make inserts. In the future, as long as inserts are replaced when mold is changed, even more spare parts of inserts can be replaced when mold is ordered, which is convenient for modifying mold. For example, some ODM manufacturers have same product appearance, just change LOGO to become a product of another brand. At this time, mold can be removed in the place of LOGO to make inserts, so there is no need to reopen a set of molds.
3. Conducive to exhaust of mold
Mold exhaust is very important. If exhaust is not good, it will cause trapped air in mold cavity. Especially deeper bones are more likely to be trapped. Product is prone to air bubbles or shrinkage, lack of plastic, whitening or black spots during injection molding, so you can add inserts where mold needs to be vented, and use matching gap of inserts to vent.
4. Convenient mold processing
We know that some of deep bones in injection mold are difficult to machine. If EDM is used, Everyone knows that EDM processing is the slowest and processing efficiency is too low. Therefore, inserts are generally selected here to reduce processing difficulty and facilitate exhaust. There is also polishing of deep bones. It is quite inconvenient to polish the places that must be polished. However, it is much more convenient to make inserts in these places and remove it separately.
5. Increase service life of mold
In general, where mold needs to be designed with inserts, it is often easy to damage, such as some sharp steel and thin steel. Once insert is damaged, it can be replaced to prolong service life of mold.
6. Conduction mold temperature
In general, mold is cooled by designing waterway, but there are some places where waterway cannot be designed. These places can be cooled by making inserts. Of course, material of insert must be selected to have better thermal conductivity such as beryllium copper.
Thirdly,
of course, there are certain defects in mold inserts, such as following:
1. Increase difficulty of mold assembly;
2. It is easy to produce overflow flashes around inserts;
3. Mold insert structure sometimes increases mold design and processing costs, thereby increasing costs;
4. Too many mosaic structures will affect design of mold cooling water circuit;
5. Too much mosaic structure will affect strength of mold core.
From aspect of processing efficiency, some large molds are set into several small pieces and processed separately to save time. In general, there are two types of inserts, through and blind inlays. For some smaller inserts, you can use Y-CUT wire cutting and positioning by hanging table. For some larger inserts, such as those above 60X60, they can take form of blind inlays, with reeling hanging. Processing is relatively difficult, but strength of mold is guaranteed.
Material of inserts: Inserts that are not wiped through can be made of same material and mold material.
If there are penetrating inserts, material can be same as material of mold core, but hardness is increased by 2 degrees, or a different hardness material
Then, when designing hanging platform, pay attention to ease of processing and reference position, in order to facilitate wire cutting and grinding machine processing. Size of hanging platform can generally be designed as 5X2.0MM or 4X3MM
And hanging platform should be placed in straight position of insert, as shown in figure
Hanging platform should be shorter than flat side by 0.5-2.0, this is for convenience of cutting R angle.
When insert is irregular and unsuitable for hanging, you can make a 1-2 degree slope around it and insert it directly. This is slope insert.
Forth, Summary
Insert is already a very common structure on mold. Although it is defective, advantages are also obvious. When designing mold, you should judge which parts need to be inserted according to specific product structure and which parts can be left intact. When making inserts, it should also be noted that there are usually insert marks or insert lines in the place where inserts are made. Customer needs to confirm whether they can accept.
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