Welcome to MMT’s Mold Design & Optimization Essentials: A Curated Expert Series, a curated selection of expert-driven content designed to empower moldmakers with cutting-edge strategies and practical solutions.Covering critical topics such as new product development, mold optimization, design for manufacturing, and precision tolerancing, these series offer invaluable guidance to enhance efficiency, quality, and innovation in your moldmaking processes.
Best Practices for New Product Development Series
Contributor: Bill Mentzer and John Berg, Dynamic Tool Corp.
Virtual Prototyping Through Mold Simulation
Simulation helps manufacturers design better molds, optimize processes and innovate more efficiently.
Navigating New Product Development for Moldmakers
Strategies for moldmakers to effectively manage new product development projects, balancing customer expectations with technical realities.
Defining and Understanding Project Scope
Establishing new product development project scope requires clear goals, resource allocation, champions for technologies and flexibility for trial and error.
Driving Success Through Process Validation and Living Prints
Treat prints as adaptable guides and prioritize rigorous process validation to align tolerances, ensure quality and enable long-term project success.
Series: Emphasizing the Basics
Contributor: Dennis Czubin, DJC Consulting
Strategic Mold Cooling: Common Causes of Inadequate Mold Cooling
Sometimes seemingly insignificant cooling details can have outsized negative impacts.
The Many Causes of Flash
Flash often has several causes working together, which makes it tough to pinpoint and solve.
Strategic Mold Cooling – Hot Spots
With complex plastic parts it can be difficult to deliver proper cooling to all potential hot spots. Here are strategies to help cool some difficult-to-cool areas.
Strategic Mold Cooling: Optimizing Molding Quality and Cycle Efficiency
Proper cooling is crucial in molding, yet often overlooked. Discover proper cooling methods to prevent defects and improve efficiency.
Venting
Strategic Mold Venting – Placement and Method
Knowing where and how to vent a mold is critical for difficult areas and complex geometries.
Strategic Mold Venting – Runner Venting
Knowing how to vent runners for cold runner systems can lead to significant process improvements.
Strategic Mold Venting
Venting is one of the most crucial, but often overlooked, aspects of mold design and manufacturing.
Flash
Flash – What Is It and What Is Acceptable?
Flash is a universal problem, but is all flash necessarily bad?
Mold Design Series
Contributor: Don Smith, Virtual.Mold.Design
Why Is Flow Simulation an Essential Design Tool? Part 2 of 4
Flow simulation is crucial for understanding how molten plastic behaves within the mold cavity. Accurate simulations inform decisions about gating, runner layouts and cooling designs.
Best Practices for Injection Mold Design: The Mold Design Review, Part 4 of 4
Structured mold design reviews are strategic imperatives that resolve design flaws early, minimizing waste and ensuring dimensional accuracy in production.
The Mold Specification Document, Part 3 of 4
The mold specification document is essential for injection molding success, connecting design requirements with manufacturing processes and quality control standards.
What Is Design for Manufacturing? Part 1 of 4
A DFM review ensures part design meets injection molding standards, enhancing cycle time, yield and aesthetics. Here are key considerations for the review.
Excerpts from “Injection Mold Design Handbook”
Contributor: Bruce Catoen, Oasic Consulting
It Starts With the Part: A Plastic Part Checklist Ensures Good Mold Design
All successful mold build projects start with examining the part to be molded to ensure it is moldable and will meet the customers' production objectives.
Tolerancing in Mold Design, Part 1: Understanding the Issues of Conventional Bilateral Tolerancing
Mold designers must understand the location, orientation and form limitations of conventional tolerancing before changing to another dimensioning system.
Machine Sizing and Specification for Optimal Mold Performance, Part 2
Properly sizing injection units during mold build prevents production problems and defects.
It Starts With the Part: A Plastic Part Checklist Ensures Good Mold Design
All successful mold build projects start with examining the part to be molded to ensure it is moldable and will meet the customers' production objectives.
Machine Sizing and Specification for Optimal Mold Performance, Part 1
Guidelines to ensure proper mold fit and maximum efficiency in injection molding machines.
Tolerancing in Mold Design, Part 1: Understanding the Issues of Conventional Bilateral Tolerancing
Mold designers must understand the location, orientation and form limitations of conventional tolerancing before changing to another dimensioning system.
Best Practices for Engraving Cores and Cavities
Consider depth, font style, artwork size, polarity and location when engraving.
How to Manage Wall Thickness Changes in Your Mold Design
To ensure even filling and cooling, consider wall section transitions, corners and fillets, ribs and bosses, lip and rim designs and CAE flow simulation software.
Tolerancing in Mold Design, Part 2: Using GD&T to Address Conventional Tolerancing Issues
Mold designers can achieve a single interpretation of workpiece functionality when following the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing standard.
Deliberate Mismatches for Easier Mold Manufacture and Improved Part Appearance
Basic principles for applying deliberate mismatch in the area between the core and cavity and between two matching plastic parts.
Tolerancing in Mold Design, Part 2: Using GD&T to Address Conventional Tolerancing Issues
Mold designers can achieve a single interpretation of workpiece functionality when following the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing standard.