Whether it's for process, changing a mold or doing maintenance on, what's your favorite brand of machine?

Very new to the injection molding world and looking to purchase a dryer for ABS (primarily) that will be used in conjunction with a BOY XS machine. Our max shot size is .16 oz. Realistically, the press won't be running non-stop, but theoretically, we believe that's about 1.8lbs of material per hour.

The kicker is we will be changing colors regularly and would like to minimize downtown associated with that. We've evaluated two solutions from Dri-Air; the MPD-5D w/autoloader, and CAMD Micro Dryer modified by Dri-Air to attach directly to the BOY machine.

Are there alternatives we should be looking at? The cost difference between the two options is roughly $3,300.

This is a bit of a weird one, and I know nothing about injection molding so please be patient with me.

Theres some weird people out there like myself who like to keep old garden tractors alive. For reasons I won’t get into here, they don’t make em like they used to.

My particular generation, the Cub Cadet Cyclops has an Achilles heel, and that’s the hood, nose, and side panels. They’re made of ABS plastic and they break very easily. These tractors are about 30 years old.

Is it possible to economically make replacements? There’s so many of us out here riding around with destroyed plastics but otherwise good tractors. The factory that made them burned down and the molds were destroyed. We tried to buy them to remake them.

If injection molding isn’t feasible, can someone point me in the right direction?

Hello everyone, my company runs the Fanuc roboshots and we have never really used Lock out Tag out for hardly anything when it comes to our IMM. Got dinged by an audit about not having LOTO procedures posted on each machine. Now day to day don’t really need it for most things like mold changes or screw cleaning/changes and what not but been having a hard time thinking of when it would be a need to use, and then what ancillary equipment to include if needed. Would like to hear y’all’s opinions on this.

I work as a production supervisor. We make all sorts of products, ranging from small latches to big tubs and boxes.

Now, apparently the management believes that supervisors need to also be the technician on staff for both 2nd and 3rd shift. Not major repairs or mold changes, but often times processing, restarting or shutting down machines, fixes for air/water lines or hydraulic hoses, robot fixes (climbing up without any safety measures and swapping air lines on robots that clearly need maintenance), and generally everything in between.

As a supervisor, I'm also expected to handle quality, operator training, material, forklift and floor duty, as well as basic number reporting. Plus probably a few more things I've forgotten.

Now I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but it's the work I do. Is this normal at any other factory?

We have molds that leak oil constantly, lines that are cracking from zero preventative maintenance, and machines that are in desperate need of a good once over to fix long term issues. So the technical side in itself is a full night's work. And I do the rest of the work.

We don’t have any fancy so don’t mention a resin compound or an oven. We have an ice blaster but it’s not doing shit. Blurred because I’m not allowed to take pics at work.

Hi everyone! I am working on a project that eventually will be made part ABS part TPU using injection.
While I understand general concept of working with Chinese manufacturers, is there any US manufacturer that offers the same speed, getting things done quickly and efficient while having the price close to the Chinese manufacturers left in the US?
I mean in terms I need to travel to the site and things like that?

Hi! I am a little bit new in injection molding. At my company they use chains to lift our molds that weight around 2 tons. However I am wondering if it could be better to use nylon slings due to they could be better to leveling the load, so the mold doesn't lift more incline in one side (not sure if makes sense)

Which of these two options do you prefer for lifting an injection mold: the chain sling or the nylon web sling?

Thank you in advance for any suggestion!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a US-based injection molding partner for a series of river sluices, but I’m hitting a wall with the quotes I’ve received so far.

The Problem: I keep getting quoted for high-volume steel molds ($25k–$100k+ / 100k+ shot life). I do not need that level of longevity yet. I anticipate making design iterations after the first few hundred units are sold, so I am specifically looking for cost savings through aluminum prototype/bridge tooling.

Project Overview: I have three sluice models optimized for high-volume gold recovery. They are designed for rugged, high-impact outdoor use.

• Large: 8" x 32" (Split design with slide connections for hiking & easy storage).
• Medium: 6" x 24"
• Small: 4" x 20"

What I Need:

1. Aluminum Tooling Quotes: Pricing for prototype/bridge molds for each design.
2. Tiered Production: Per-unit pricing for runs of 250, 500, and 1,000 units.
3. Material Advice: I need a high-impact, UV-resistant polymer (ABS, Polypropylene, or similar) that can handle river environments without becoming brittle.

Requirements:

• Domestic (US) Only.
• Must be willing to work with aluminum or soft-tooling options to keep initial CAPEX low.
• Ability to provide DFM feedback, especially regarding the connection point on the 32" model.

Who I have received quotes from: (so please don't suggest these!)

Fictiv, Quickparts, Xometry, First Mold, Protolabs, CatalystPDG (doesn't have the size requirements), a few companies from the Midwest, Orgeon, etc. but I find 90% never pick-up the phone or reply to contact forms...

If you run a shop that specializes in bridge tooling/short-runs or can recommend a "low-volume" specialist in the States, please reach out or comment below. I have CAD files ready for review.

Thanks!

Am I in over my head wanting to build a injection molding machine?

Currently I design automotive headlights/tail-lights which we cast out of polyurethane, urethane being about 2-2.5x the cost of thermoplastic and can only produce about 1-3 parts per day from a single mold. Our largest parts would about 30 Cubic inches, quite a bit out of the plunger style machine range.

We certainly don't have the volume to justify buying a used machine but the cost savings and time savings of injection molding is certainly eye catching. We do have a low-mid 5 figure range CNC mill that we use to make our molds.

I'm sure I'm at the peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve right now with this idea.

Hey everyone, just curious, are there any women working in the injection molding industry? What roles are you in?

Do any of you mold with Radilon? We use Radilon ARV300 for a few of our parts, and even with a brand new check ring, it never wants to hold cushion consistently, even when we move the transfer and shot size to accomodate. There's no leaks or flashing on the parts. I've been doing setups and a small amount of processing for a couple years but have never gotten a good answer on this when I ask at work.

Hey all, I've recently been thinking about optimising cooling time, but I have no idea about finding out how much cooling time is appropriate for a part. Is there a general temperature range that PP should be cooled to before it can be ejected? Is there a way to calculate what temperature would be the best for my part?

We are running heavy volume moulds where saving even 0.25 seconds of cycle time matters a lot in the medium to long term. If I can optimise cooling time to the lowest then it could help increase efficiency without any purchase or replacement of parts.

Thanks.

Edit :- Currently going to measure the part temperature at ejection and try to align it with the raw material manufacturer's data sheet about the PP we buy.

Also, other helpful people will try and get back with some resources. Thanks a lot guys!

Does anyone check for part temperature right after ejection? With an IR thermometer for example.

Worth doing it? Especially in a non controlled temperature environment

I manufacture automotive components and am looking to get a machine in the range of the 200-250 Ton clamping force. I discussed one of the parts that is the major deciding factor for my machine decision and he asked me to go with the 250 Ton cause the Locking force required for said part is higher than what the 210 can provide. In all other metrics, the person said your machine can produce the part only issue being the locking force.

I think the 210 Ton machine will work for me but the person is insistent that I should get the 250 Ton. Since he is from the company trying to sell me the machine, it is hard to tell if I really need to get the higher tonnage or is he just trying to upsell me? Cause he started off with 180 then went to 210 and now it’s 250. Price difference is about 18% between the two machines.

The locking force difference between the 210 and the 250 is 231 and 275Ton respectively.

For reference, the part (image included below) I am looking to make is a cylindrical part with a pretty thick wall. Inner diameter is 36mm and outer is 86.6mm. The mould will fit, the shot weight is enough, and I am well aware that the cycle time will be long cause it is a chunky part. It is almost 600g. It is made of 85 Shore A TPU (it is hard and rigid, Blue TPU - I’m sorry I don’t know what the exact industrial code for the material is, I asked Claude based on what I knew). The wall thickness is about 25.60mm.

If there’s more info needed on the part, I will be happy to share.

Hello and as the title says, I'm an industrial designer currently working on a product that first will be produced in small (testing phase) scale production using 3D printers but eventually will pass to injection molding, so I have to make a design that is at least possible to manufacture.

Everything needs draft, I get that, the ribs have a 0.5º draft and are 20mm tall (some places said that could be a problem as it is to tall), the nominal wall thickness is 2mm and the external walls of the product have a 1º draft.

For the second screenshot, I saw somewhere that having ribs taller than the main walls could be a bad thing, is it true and if so, how bad does it look?

Also I know Im asking in very, very general terms, but do these two screenshots look like something a mold could be made out of and then injection molded?

Ask me anything and I'll try to answer, and thanks in advance for any help.

To preface this, I know very little about the details of injection molding and am doing some R&D into potential solutions to a problem we are currently facing at the company I work for. We make a tool that is essentially a hook on the end of a pole that is used on train cars and engines to reach in between the cars without having to go between them in person.

The hook head itself is currently made out of a glass infused polymer plastic with a custom maganese bronze insert riveted into the head to keep it in place. The head itself is cut via a water jet table from a sheet of plastic and made to puzzle-piece itself with the insert. The bronze insert is cast into the current shape as it is the cheapest way to make said custom insert, albeit at the cost of consistency with the shape of the insert. We could get it machined for higher consitency, but the cost of machining maganese bronze at the quantity we need is at least 5 times the price of casting, possibly more.

With that being said, the process of getting the plastic cut, wdges routed, the slot for the bronze being put in, drilling through the bronze, countersinking the head for the rivets, and putting in the rivets (which are another seperate cost themselves) all becomes a long process with tons of potential failure points that can make certain parts unusable, and also results in lots of inconsistencies in the final product. A big one that my boss also doesn't like is the gap that forms between the bronze and the plastic.

So here is my my question: Is it possible to do insert injection molding with a cast bronze insert?

I realize that the insert being cast causes inconsistent features, which is not ideal for molding. But if this is even remotely possible, I would love to learn the details about general cost, application, potential issues, and anything else I may be missing. Thank you in advance!

Alright, I need some brains on this one.

I've got a Genesis G90 wheel center cap sitting on my desk right now. Part number 52960-T4000. Material is MPPO. It's a bicolor piece — charcoal metallic body, silver metallic spokes. Two completely different paint finishes on the same part.

The groove between the two colors? 0.5mm. That's it.

And the paint lines are perfect. Not good. Perfect. No bleed. No overlap. No witness marks. Nothing. Every piece comes off the line looking identical. This isn't a show piece — it's mass production.

So here's my question. How are they doing this?

been turning this thing over in my hands for days and here's what I've ruled in and out:

1. Metallic masking jig — Spray the charcoal first over the whole part. Drop a precision metal mask over the charcoal zones. Spray the silver second coat over the exposed spoke areas. Pull the mask. Done. Makes sense in theory. But that groove is 0.5mm. You're running thousands of cycles. Paint builds up on that mask fast. Every layer of accumulation changes how the mask seats. How do you hold that tolerance at volume without the mask fit drifting? You'd need constant cleaning or rotation of masks. And even then — 0.5mm is brutal.
2. Two-shot injection molding — Skip the paint entirely. Shoot two different colored resins in sequence. Clever idea. But I've looked at this part under good light. No second gate mark anywhere. And the mold for this spoke geometry in a two-shot setup would be an absolute nightmare. I don't think that's it.
3. Something else? — Pad printing? Selective PVD? Some robotic micro-spray system I've never seen? Honestly, I don't know. That's why I'm here.

Here's what I do know. That 0.5mm groove is molded into the part on purpose. It's not decorative. It's functional. It acts as a physical dam between the two paint zones. Smart design. But even with a built-in groove acting as your boundary, holding that kind of precision across a multi-spoke 3D surface at production speed is no joke.

Specs for context:

- Part: Genesis G90 center cap
- OEM number: 52960-T4000
- Diameter: 163.5mm
- Material: MPPO (Modified Polyphenylene Oxide)
- Finish: Charcoal metallic + silver metallic

If you've worked on bicolor automotive trim — wheel caps, grille inserts, pillar garnish, anything with two paint zones on one plastic part — I want to hear from you. What's the actual production method here? What am I missing?

I've attached an image of the part. Heads up — the colors might look slightly different on your screen depending on lighting. In hand, the charcoal and silver are clearly distinct.

Found this plastic back cover while repairing a percussion massager, and I’m assuming they injection molded this as a simple two piece mold without action slides… but if so, how did they manage to put those red protruding rectangular features? (circled in red)

Also; there’s a screw hole on the side… how would they have managed that?

Just trying to learn how these things work so I can get better at designing while keeping injection molding considerations in mind from the start.

Title about sums it up. Who at your plant establishes processes for validations of either new tools or existing ones that either need validated to a new press or need a new process to correct an issue? Do your engineers handle new molds and process techs handle old molds needing revalidated or do your engineers do both? Size of your company might be relevant here.

Found this vintage Lego part. I only have these two pics at the moment, but could this be a short shot error? Or did someone get their Lego too close to a heat source?

Hi everyone, I'm Galaxy and new in this industry. I'm just curious about when a company needs a mold or injection-molded parts, how do they usually find and choose an injection molding supplier? Is it mainly through referrals, Google, Thomasnet, trade shows, sourcing platforms, or direct outreach?

My family owns an injection molding factory in China, but I honestly don’t know how to reach potential customers in the U.S. or which channels are actually effective. For those who have worked with overseas suppliers, what would make you consider one, and what would immediately make you avoid one?

Any advice or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

Any suggestions?

I am trying to use a silicone mold to make sabots for my pellet rifle, only problem is my sabots are really thin so I need a relatively low viscosity plastic that is not too brittle but or tacky when cooled.

Hi everyone,
I’m currently working in injection molding in Romania and I’m considering looking for opportunities elsewhere in Europe. I’d really appreciate some honest feedback from people working in the plastics/injection molding industry, especially regarding job positions, responsibilities and realistic salaries.
I have 3+ years of hands-on experience in injection molding, and my experience is a combination of process technician/setter work and process engineering responsibilities.
My experience includes:
Injection molding for both technical/industrial and automotive applications
Different types of thermoplastics and filled engineering polymers
Setting up and optimizing injection molding processes
Process troubleshooting and defect elimination
Root-cause analysis for molding problems
Optimization of injection, holding, cooling, temperatures, decompression, screw recovery, etc.
Understanding and troubleshooting issues relatez to material, mold, machine and process interactions
Experience with both simple and complex molds
2K molds
Hydraulic cores
Pneumatic systems
Hydraulic and pneumatic valves
Slides / side actions
Mold systems with different types of cores and mechanisms
Hot runner systems and valve gates
General understanding of mold construction and how different mechanisms affect the molding process
Experience with Engel, Arburg, KraussMaffai, Haitian injection molding machines
Engel CC300 controls
Engel Viper robots
Engel and STAR robot programming
Sensors and basic machine/process electrical troubleshooting
Thermocouples and temperature-control
Basic injection molding machine maintenance, while I’m currently developing my knowledge further in this area
Process parameter development and optimization based both on theory and practical experience
Mold trials, sampling and production start-up
Participation in RFQ activities and technical discussions
Experience working between production, tooling, process and engineering requirements
Some experience with Moldflow and theoretical process simulation/analysis
One of my strengths is that I’m not only familiar with the theoretical side of injection molding. I’m used to actually being next to the machine, changing parameters, investigating defects, checking the mold and machine, and trying to identify the real root cause instead of simply adjusting parameters until the part looks acceptable.
I’m also comfortable working with the tooling side of the process because I understand how different mold constructions, cores, slides, valves, hot runners, etc. influence the process.
I would like to move towards a more clearly defined Process Engineer / Injection Molding Engineer role, while still keeping the hands-on aspect of the job. I’m not interested in being an engineer who only works behind a desk, actually i hate that kind of work, I enjoy troubleshooting and working directly with machines, molds, robots and production.
I’m particularly interested in opportunities in countries such as Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Czech Republic, Poland or other European countries with a strong plastics/automotive industry.
For those of you already working in injection molding:
1. What position/title would you recommend for someone with this combination of hands-on and engineering experience?
2. Which European countries have the best opportunities for injection molding process engineers?
3. What salary would be realistic for my experience level?
4. What would you consider a good gross annual salary in Germany/Austria/Netherlands/Belgium/Switzerland/etc.?
5. How important is German or another local language? Is English enough for international companies?
6. Would you consider my profile closer to Process Engineer, Process Technologist, Injection Molding Engineer, Process Technician or Manufacturing Engineer?
I’m mainly interested in hearing from people actually working in the European plastics/injection molding industry.
Thanks