Zachary Roe

Industrial Injection Molding

EKU AEM PROGRAM

Zachary Roe
Industrial Injection Molding Lab

EKU

Zachary Roe

Industrial Injection Molding

EKU

Introduction
Plastics are used everywhere. Everyday throughout the world plastics are
used in a wide array of applications. If you can name it most everything that
we use daily has at least one if not multiple plastic components. Where we
all use plastics every single day, we may take for granted the actual
processes that go into making the plastics. To simplify you heat up a resin
and inject the resin into a mold. But, everything must be exact if the
temperature is off you may see a semi-solid mold, which will melt as soon as
you touch it. Or, if the temperature isnt warm enough you may see the
resins not heat up enough in order to allow the resin to flow into the mold.
All plastics exhibit different characteristics. When picking which resin to use
Electrical Resistance, elongation, melting point, density, thermal conductivity
and flammability are just a few of the characteristics that must be
considered. There are many more characteristics but these are just to name
a select few. The resins also come in different forms in the application for this
lab ours required LDPE pellets.
Looking at an overview of the performed lab is actually quite simple. The
resin is heated in the barrel then once a certain temperature is reached the
resin is plunged into the mold with a plunger.

Objectives

Observe the injection molding process

Practice the injection molding process
Gain understanding of molding applications

Equipment Used

Zachary Roe

Industrial Injection Molding

EKU

Injection Molding Machine

LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene)
Pawn Chess Piece Mold
Dye Resin
Allen Wrenches
Stoner Spray Solution
Screwdriver

Lab Description and Results

This lab isnt as simple as a plug and play method. You must first ensure
double check all equipment. You must first turn on the air supply and make
sure that the pressure is around 80 PSI. You do this by turning the value
clockwise until you reached the desired PSI. Second, you must make the
barrel temperature around 375 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature is the
hardest to hold, because when you add more raw material the temperature
in the barrel drops, but if you dont inject a mold even though the
temperature is set to 375 the barrel obtains a temperature around 450. As
you can see in the picture there is a green line on the left hand side of the
injection molding machine. But when this green line is on the 0 the
temperature you were hoping to obtain is met. But, if it moves above the
zero mark then the temperature is approximately x amount of degrees above
the set temperature. For example if the green mark is resting at 100 above
the green line the temperature is around 475 when set to 375. The inverse is
true if 100 is below the green line then the temperature is around 275. You

Zachary Roe

Industrial Injection Molding

EKU

can see this in the picture below.

From here you fill the reservoir with raw LDPE. From here I had to change
the mold. You must turn the clamp off so the clamp springs back. This will
make the change out far easier. There are three different Allen wrenches you
use to change out the mold. There are two large set screws that hold the
mold to the injection molding machine. You first must remove these in order
to get the mold out. From here there are two more screws holding both sides
of the mold to the clamping area. After this step there are four screws that
keep the spring and mold together. After these last four screws are removed
it slides straight off. Then you must ensure that you are placing the smaller
side of the mold on this side. If the mold isnt flushed with the clamping
system then the mold wont produce a quality product, if any product at all.
From here Id let the barrel heat up and cool down. I waited too long
on the first three attempts and I realized that the barrel got up to around 450
degrees Fahrenheit. Due to this I quickly made three pawn molds to try to
achieve a quality product. Since I let the barrel heat up too much I had to
produce from the resin that had already been melted so that more resin
could come from the barrel thus dropping the temperature to the 375
degrees Fahrenheit that I was looking for. As you can see in the picture the
back three products moving from left to right produced low quality products.
The products collapsed as soon as they were touched. The fourth product is

Zachary Roe

Industrial Injection Molding

EKU

the pawn in the front. This product I thought to be of high quality but when I
went to touch it the pawn ended up melting. The second from the right in the
back row was the next product I produced when the temperature had
dropped to around 365 degrees Fahrenheit. I was happy with this product so I
decided to let the temperature rise up to around 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
And when I performed the ram on the injection mold I noticed some come
spewing out of the mold. Therefore I realized I allowed too much resin to melt
thus producing a less quality final product. Therefore I found out you must
have the happy median of melted resin and the temperature of the barrel.

Answers to Questions
Machine Specs:

Model Number: PR063

Serial Number: 8409
Capacity: 1/3 oz
Voltage: 115 AC/DC
Amp: 7.6 amps

Mold Used

Resin

Quality @400
F

Quality @
425 F or >

Pawn

LDPE

Bubbly (Poor)

Molten
(Really Bad)

Quality
between 375
F and 390 F
Good

Zachary Roe

Industrial Injection Molding

EKU

Conclusions
This lab was very similar to the Educational injection molding. But I enjoyed
these molds a lot better. I like how the holes automatically lined up as long
as you properly placed the mold in the clamping system. On the Educational
injection molding this wasnt true and made it very hard to align the holes.
I learned that in order to achieve perfection controlling the temperature was
the number one variable. When it was too high the mold ended up producing
a bubbly product that wouldnt cool into a quality product. But, if the
temperature was too low you wouldnt get enough resin into the mold to
produce any product.
I think the autofeed should know when to cut off in order to improve the
machine and for an indicator light to ensure you have enough of the
material melted in order to fill the mold. But, overall I feel as if this lab was a
success.

Appendix

Zachary Roe

A. Actual Lab

Industrial Injection Molding

EKU