Injection Machine Quick Connect Upgrade

This How-To will show you how to upgrade your injection machine and molds to make your injection process faster, safer, and more efficient! This trick works on any injection mold that have a threaded connection to the machine nozzle. Install a brass garden hose connector and voilà!

< 5 hours

Easy

Draft

More Information

143 views

0 useful

0 comments

4 steps

1 The problems with injection

The injection machine is a great tool to raise awareness about plastic pollution and demonstrate the plastic recycling process. However if you need to produce many parts, the process can be a little tedious and wasteful: -Threaded Connection ---> Often get clogged up by molten plastic, making the assembly difficult and require cleaning between each cycle -Hard to demold ---> Mold connector creates undercut shapes and is hard to demold Here are the specifications that the upgrade system must achieve: 1- Allow molds to be attached and detached from the machine in 1 movement 2- Reduce uncomfortable position for the operator 3- Reduce production waste 4- Be usable with gloves easily 5- Reduce cycle time 6- Revoke the need for a plug 7- Do not require cleaning between each cycle The trick is to use a brass garden hose connector, available in gardening and home improvement store, to easily connect your mold ans be more efficient!

2 Bill of materials:

You'll need : 1 - ¾ inch female brass garden hose connector with threads 2 - ½ inch male brass garden hose connector (or any other size depending on what fits on your mold), with INSIDE threads 1- ½ inch brass endcap 1 - 1 cm long piece of M14 threaded rod (or a 14mm diameter round) 1- 10mm drill bit ATTENTION: Buy the right hardware! See pictures

3 Assembly

For this step you will need a drill and a vise or even better a drill press . 1- Drill a 10 mm hole trough the piece of M14 threaded rod 2- Place this part inside your mold ½ connector, it should fit inside and fill the space. 3- Screw the male connector on top of it 4- Drill with the 10 mm drill trough all the parts to enlarge the hole diameter. 5- Take the second male connector and screw it to the endcap --> Here's your new plug :) .

4 No more undercut!

The piece of rod is here to fill the space inside the ½ inch connector. The molten plastic then flows trough the 10 mm round channel, and the sprue can be pulled out from the mold easely! If you forget the spacer

Precious Plastic is a project by One Army.Please sponsor the work or help us build the software.