Injection molding involves forcing melt plastic into molds at high pressure. The plastic then forms to the shape of the mold as it cools and solidifies. Usually a quick-cycle process, injection molding can produce large quantities of parts, accommodate a wide variety of part sizes. Here discuss the machine (aka IMM) concept to inject melt plastic into molds.
Generally, an injection molding machine could be driven by 2 kinds of power:
- Hydraulic
The hydraulic motor inside IMM driven the oil in order to generate hydraulic pressure. The oil travel inside pipeline and being sent to provide specific movement by switch. In order to “maintain” the hydraulic pressure, the hydraulic motor needs to work “continuously” during the production process.
- Full electric
Separate the movements and drive them by different stepping motors, each motor only works when need to perform corresponding movement. The injection machine “does not need” always maintain the maximum power consumption.
Generally, an injection molding machine consisted of following parts:
- Injection unit: responsible for melting/compounding raw material and inject the subject melt plastic into mold.
- Clamping unit: responsible for close/open mold, provide ejection and other relative movements.
- Control system: there 2 kinds of control systems as below
Open loop: operation output/result don’t affect the control system, the output/result won’t be measured/compared/feedback to the input/setting. The IMM will only produce parts according to the initial setting.
Close loop: operation output/result affects the control system, the output/result will be measured/compared/feedback to the input/setting. The IMM will produce parts according to the output/result from every cycle and adjust every next cycle. The IMM could adjust itself according to actual production/environment status, in order to produce most stable quality parts.
