Plastic Injection Molding
Added 2024-02-09 14:36:37 +0000 UTCDecided I wanted to dive into the plastic injection molding world one step at a time. Starting with a really basic machine but this should show me what I need when I want to move up to the next one.
So why injection molding?
It’s a cheap process after you have the master mold either made of aluminum which lasts forever or one that lasts a while out of resin (eventually breaks down). But resin is easy to print at home and have copies of.
Aluminum molds I need to send out as I do not have a cnc that can mill metal. Usually molds tend to cost about $250 and up based on intricacy. I tend to recommend this if you want to make a lot of the same over and over. But I plan to start with resin molds. You can do about 70 pulls on a high heat resin mold before it breaks down. Resin molds are fast and extremely cost effective.
So why this over resin printing or regular FDM printing?
Stronger than resin, lighter and overall easier and faster to replicate. Way cleaner than any FDM prints and takes seconds to make.
What sort of material does it take?
Plastic beads. You can get these in a ton of colors, materials and flexibility. Tons and I mean tons of options and getting the material is cheap and easy.
I went with the inexpensive NGS IM3 after looking for a basic hand crank machine. This way I can have an idea of what I can do. Learn how much pressure I need to make parts.
Since I want to go into toy making this is something I have been wanting for a while.
Here is a quick overview of the machine:
https://youtu.be/og9ATntt6oo?si=R1qs9a4AsCZnXzrq
If you want to see and learn more about molding with similar machines or just more in general, these videos really opened my eyes to ideas.
https://youtu.be/Y5_kSuMitu8?si=xpbqdfBRIs-RCUk3
https://youtu.be/dueHwlQP4Es?si=jO54QcE_Ib5mBPUb
https://youtu.be/wMRSPXt48CI?si=gKDRzaNbuwYZf5XG
https://youtu.be/uEXQMAM53E8?si=PWyTMetiLvD-ncJY
https://youtu.be/kq5dw1x05zI?si=hkmlZ-rBL3d8WcNw
