Positioning is a design concept; it helps to maintain and ensure the interaction between the elements of injection molding process by reserving specific area of “mold part” or providing particular design to control alignment inside and outside of mold (see Pic.-1). The purpose of Positioning includes:
- Guidance to process mold part
- Guidance to assemble mold
- Guidance to load mold on IMM
- Guidance to mold movement during production
The colors of different mold parts stand for: Red: Location ring, White: Back plate, Blue: Cavity plate, Yellow: Core plate, Green: Spacer, Black: Ejector, Purple: Ejector plate, Pink: Knock out hole, Grey: Parting line/surface
- Guidance to process mold part
The positioning of each mold part called “Datum”; it is a particular surface/area on mold part. Datum is reserved to help manufacturer/manufacturing (CNC machining/EDM…etc.) machine to understand the position of the mold part and process the same correctly. see example in Pic.-2.
- Guidance to assemble mold
There are 4 elements that helps bench workers to assemble mold correctly, see Table-1 below.
- Guidance to load mold on IMM
The positioning between mold and IMM is location ring, it ensures mold to be correctly loaded. See red area in Pic.-1.
- Guidance to mold movement during production
There are 4 elements that helps mold moves correctly during production, see Table-2 below.
