Plastic injection molding
Plastic injection molding process; raw material is melted in barrel with the help of temperature then injected into a mold. After cooling, removing plastic product with ejector from mold. Plastic injection molding method is widely used in industrial areas.
Many products, from the smallest products to the largest, can be manufactured using the plastic injection molding.
Mold design and mold manufacturing should be done before starting production with the plastic injection molding. The manufacture of the mold should be done with meticulous and low tolerance values.
Advantages of plastic injection molding
- It is possible to manufacture complex shaped parts by plastic injection molding,
- High production speeds and suitability for mass production
- Labor cost of the products is low
- Good dimensional stability of products
- Possibility to recycle unuseful pieces
- Sensitive tolerances can be achieved
The most commonly used materials in plastic injection molding are;
PP, PE, PS, ABS, PA, PET, PVC, POM
Metal injection molding
It is the process of injecting liquid metals into the prepared molds by applying pressure with special machines .
Aluminum, zamac (a zinc and aluminium alloy), brass, magnesium are the metals and alloys which are used in metal injection molding mostly.
The machines that make this process are called metal injection molding machines. There are 2 kinds of metal injection molding machines; cold chamber and hot chamber metal injection molding machine. Cold chamber machines are generally casting aluminum and brass, hot chamber machines cast zamac. Hot chamber metal injection machine’s process is faster than cold chamber metal injection machine’s process, but can only inject metals and alloys with a low melting point such as zamac, magnesium and lead.
Metal injection molding allows to produce large amounts of complex metal shapes.
The metal injection molding process is very similar to plastic injection molding process and can produce the same shape and configuration features.
Metal injection mold can be with many cavities so that production amount can be very high and shapes can be tricky also.
What are the advantages of metal injection molding?
Metal injection molding offers many advantages over other production technologies. Metal injection molding technology has advanced greatly over the past 25 years.
The metal injection molding process offers the following advantages:
Cost-effective production of high volume complex parts.
Production time is short.
A wide variety of alloys are available.