What should I do if the injection molding size changes?
1) Inconsistent molding conditions or improper operation
During injection molding, various process parameters such as temperature, pressure and time must be strictly controlled in accordance with process requirements, especially the molding cycle of each plastic part must be consistent and cannot be changed at will. If the injection pressure is too low, the holding time is too short, the mold temperature is too low or uneven, the temperature at the barrel and nozzle is too high, and the plastic part is not cooled enough, the shape and size of the plastic part will be unstable.
In general, using higher injection pressure and injection speed, appropriately extending the filling and holding time, and increasing the mold temperature and material temperature are beneficial to overcome the dimensional instability failure.
If the external dimensions of the plastic part after molding are larger than the required dimensions, the injection pressure and melt temperature should be appropriately reduced, the mold temperature should be increased, the filling time should be shortened, and the gate cross-sectional area should be reduced, thereby increasing the shrinkage rate of the plastic part.
If the size of the plastic part after molding is smaller than the required size, the opposite molding conditions should be adopted.
It is worth noting that changes in ambient temperature also have a certain impact on the fluctuation of the molding size of the plastic part. The process temperature of the equipment and mold should be adjusted in time according to changes in the external environment.
2) Improper selection of molding raw materials
The shrinkage rate of molding raw materials has a great influence on the dimensional accuracy of plastic parts. If the precision of molding equipment and mold is very high, but the shrinkage rate of molding raw materials is very large, it is difficult to ensure the dimensional accuracy of plastic parts. Generally speaking, the greater the shrinkage rate of molding raw materials, the more difficult it is to ensure the dimensional accuracy of plastic parts. Therefore, when selecting molding resins, the influence of the shrinkage rate of raw materials after molding on the dimensional accuracy of plastic parts must be fully considered. For the selected raw materials, the range of shrinkage rate variation cannot be greater than the requirements for the dimensional accuracy of plastic parts.
It should be noted that the shrinkage rates of various resins vary greatly, and they should be analyzed according to the degree of crystallization of the resin. Generally, the shrinkage rate of crystalline and semi-crystalline resins is greater than that of non-crystalline resins, and the range of shrinkage rate variation is also relatively large. The corresponding shrinkage rate fluctuations after molding of plastic parts are also relatively large; for crystalline resins, the degree of crystallinity is high, the molecular volume is reduced, and the shrinkage of plastic parts is large. The size of resin spherulites also affects the shrinkage rate. The spherulites are small, the gaps between molecules are small, the shrinkage of plastic parts is small, and the impact strength of plastic parts is relatively high.
In addition, if the particle size of the molding raw materials is uneven, the drying is poor, the recycled materials and new materials are mixed unevenly, and the performance of each batch of raw materials is different, it will also cause fluctuations in the molding size of the plastic parts.
3) Mold failure
The structural design and manufacturing accuracy of the mold directly affect the dimensional accuracy of the plastic parts. During the molding process, if the rigidity of the mold is insufficient or the molding pressure in the mold cavity is too high, the mold will be deformed, which will cause the molding size of the plastic parts to be unstable.
If the matching clearance between the guide pin and the guide sleeve of the mold exceeds the tolerance due to poor manufacturing accuracy or excessive wear, the molding dimensional accuracy of the plastic parts will also decrease.
If there are hard fillers or glass fiber reinforced materials in the molding raw materials, which cause serious wear of the mold cavity, or when one mold is used for multi-cavity molding, there are errors between the cavities and errors such as gates, runners, and poor balance of the feed port, which will cause inconsistent filling, which will also cause dimensional fluctuations.
Therefore, when designing the mold, sufficient mold strength and rigidity should be designed, and the processing accuracy should be strictly controlled. The mold cavity material should use wear-resistant materials, and the cavity surface should preferably be heat treated and cold hardened. When the dimensional accuracy of plastic parts is very high, it is best not to use a one-mold-multiple-cavity structure. Otherwise, in order to ensure the molding accuracy of plastic parts, a series of auxiliary devices to ensure mold accuracy must be set on the mold, resulting in a high mold production cost.
When plastic parts have a thickness error, it is often caused by mold failure. If the wall thickness of the plastic part has a thickness error under the condition of one mold and one cavity, it is generally due to the installation error and poor positioning of the mold, which leads to the relative position offset between the cavity and the core.
At this time, for those plastic parts with very precise wall thickness requirements, they cannot be positioned only by guide pins and guide sleeves, and other positioning devices must be added; if the thickness error is generated under the condition of one mold and multiple cavities, in general, the error is small at the beginning of molding, but the error gradually increases after continuous operation. This is mainly caused by the error between the cavity and the core, especially when hot runner mold molding is used. This phenomenon is most likely to occur. In this regard, a double cooling circuit with a small temperature difference can be set in the mold. If a thin-walled round container is molded, a floating core can be used, but the core and cavity must be concentric.
In addition, when making molds, in order to facilitate mold repair, it is generally customary to make the cavity smaller than the required size and the core larger than the required size, leaving a certain margin for mold repair. When the inner diameter of the molding hole of the plastic part is much smaller than the outer diameter, the core pin should be made larger, because the shrinkage of the plastic part at the molding hole is always greater than other parts, and shrinks toward the center of the hole. On the contrary, if the inner diameter of the molding hole of the plastic part is close to the outer diameter, the core pin can be made smaller.
4) Equipment failure
If the plasticizing capacity of the molding equipment is insufficient, the feeding system is unstable, the screw speed is unstable, the stop function is abnormal, the check valve of the hydraulic system fails, the thermocouple of the temperature control system is burned out, the heater is short-circuited, etc., the molding size of the plastic part will be unstable. As long as these faults are found, targeted measures can be taken to eliminate them.
5) Inconsistent test methods or conditions
If the method, time, and temperature of measuring the size of the plastic part are different, the measured size will be very different. Among them, the temperature condition has the greatest impact on the test, because the thermal expansion coefficient of plastic is 10 times larger than that of metal. Therefore, the structural dimensions of plastic parts must be determined using the methods and temperature conditions specified in the standard, and the plastic parts must be fully cooled and shaped before they can be measured. Generally, the size of plastic parts changes greatly within 10 hours of demolding, and they are basically shaped after 24 hours.
