Precautions for plastic mold manufacturing

first： Don't just focus on product design and ignore plastic mold manufacturing. When some users are developing products or trial production of new products, they often only focus on product research and development at the initial stage, ignoring communication with plastic mold manufacturing units. After the product design plan is initially determined, contacting the mold manufacturer in advance has two advantages:

1. It can ensure that the designed product has a good forming process, and the finalized design will not be modified because the parts are difficult to process.

2. The mold maker can make design preparations in advance to prevent poor consideration in haste and affect the construction period.

3. To make high-quality plastic molds, only the close cooperation between the supply and demand sides can finally reduce the cost and shorten the cycle.

Second： don't just look at the price, but consider the quality, cycle and service in all aspects.

1. There are many types of molds, which can be roughly divided into ten categories. According to different requirements such as part material, physical and chemical properties, mechanical strength, dimensional accuracy, surface finish, service life, economy, etc, different types of molds are selected for forming.

2. Molds with high precision requirements need to be processed by high-precision CNC machine tools, and there are strict requirements on mold materials and forming processes. CAD/ CAE/ CAM mold technology is also required to design and analyze.

3. Some parts have special requirements during molding, and the mold needs to use advanced technology such as hot runner, gas-assisted molding, and nitrogen cylinder.

4. Manufacturers should have CNC, EDM, wire cutting machine tools and CNC profiling milling equipment, high-precision grinding machines, high-precision three-coordinate measuring instruments, computer design and related software, etc

5. For general large-scale stamping dies (such as automobile cover dies), it is necessary to consider whether the machine tool has a blanking mechanism, or even a side lubricant, multi-station progressive, etc. In addition to stamping tonnage, punching times, feeding devices, machine tools and mold protection devices should also be considered.

6. Not every enterprise possesses and masters the manufacturing methods and techniques of the above-mentioned molds. When choosing a cooperative manufacturer, you must understand its processing capabilities, not only looking at hardware equipment, but also combining management level, processing experience and technical strength.

7. For the same set of molds, the quotations of different manufacturers sometimes have a big gap. You should not pay more than the value of the mold, nor less than the cost of the mold. Mold manufacturers, like you, want to make a reasonable profit in their business. Ordering a set of molds with a much lower quote is where the trouble begins. Users must start from their own requirements and make a comprehensive measurement.

third： Avoid multi-headed cooperation, and try to integrate plastic mold making and product processing.

1. With qualified molds (qualified test pieces), it is not necessarily possible to produce batches of qualified products. This is mainly related to the selection of the machine tool for the part, the forming process (forming temperature, forming time, etc) and the technical quality of the operator.

2. If you have a good mold, you must also have a good forming process, preferably one-stop cooperation, and try to avoid multi-head cooperation. If the conditions are not met, it is necessary to choose a party to be fully responsible, and it must be clearly written when signing the contract.