[Driftwood]

Hi all,

Hoping some of you who have some injection molding knowledge and experience can offer some help.

To date, we are a small CNC machine shop. One vertical mill, one 2 axis lathe. Now, we have have a customer for which we made some plastic parts for some prototypes they needed.

Once the prototyping phase is over (maybe a couple more months), they are proposing for us to get an injection molding machine and injection mold these parts for them in much higher quantities. They're still estimating quantities, but looking at something like 50,000 /month (or maybe that was per year, will have to double check).

Details still need to be worked out, but they are offering to pay for the machine, we just need to find a suitable machine and purchase it along with all the necessary equipment. But they like the idea of having the machine here so that we can quickly make and modify any molds for the machine.

I'm attaching an IGS of the parts. This is for the left part, the right is just the mirror image, and they are needed in quantities 1 to 1. For the application, they have already decided the material they want is ABS, but we may look at other materials down the road.


So we're in the west coast of canada and can't find any machinery dealers here that could set us up, does anyone know of any? maybe in the northwest US? Not a big deal to drive down a little way...

Any suggestions on good sites that will help get us up to speed as far as what equipment we would need? What type of injection molding machine? associated equipment thats necessary, ie: dryers, etc?
Good machinery brands to go with?

We're hoping to get a machine that could bang out 10 of these at once, though not sure how difficult a mold that would be to make, and I'm starting to think that would be a pretty large machine.

Also, any advise on how difficult these parts might be to injection mold? Of particular concern is the 1/32" wide x 1/16" deep groove that runs around the outside on one face, and the mating boss on the other face.

Thanks in advance, any info is very much appreciated.

EDIT: Had to remove file for now as there is some concern of proprietary info, so need to get permission from customer. But general size of parts is 6.5" x 3" x 1/4".

[PinnacleMachine]

Hey Driftwood, give me a call 604-468-7731 I have some pointers for you. I had a look at your part - a 4 cavity mould would probably be you best bet.

JP