We got inquiry from US company about injection mold manufacturing and injection molding project of low volume plastic parts. At last we made high-quality mold and did succeed injection molding for the US company. Plastic part is recreational use. It was required to be durable, but slightly, flexible to avoid breaking. So ACO Mold injection molding manufacturer proposed to use PP material, this is hard plastic material but a little bit flexible and not easy to break.

After quotation, and before DFM, there are many important information and details need to be communicated and confirmed with customer. ACO Mold should clearly learn about customer’s requirements on the plastic parts.

Basic part information

• Part size: 108*108*355.6mm
• Plastic material: PP
• Finish: SPI-BI
• Color: N/A
• Production volume: 300pcs

Basic mold information

• Mold type: 2-Plate
• Gate type: Side Gate
• Cavity number: 1*1
• Material: PP
• Shrinkage: 16/1000
• Molding Machine (Tons): 200T

The mold service life is 300K shots guaranteed. Injection molding cycle time is 40-50 seconds. About the cut-outs in the flanges, cut-ours can be released by slider. ACO Mold proposed the inner side wall of the handle need to be straight, otherwise undercut inside cannot be easily released. Single cavity mold is proposed since the part is big and the order is low volume injection molding. We are going to use hydraulic cylinder to pull the slider. The injection mold use cold runner. There will be engraving “customer’s company name” on the mold. After the important information is confirmed with customer, we start DFM. DFM for manufacturability as picture below:

Then we did mold design for injection mold manufacturing according to the details confirmed by customer. Mold 3D design as following:
After mold design was approved by customer, we ordered steel/mold base and started mold machining. Mold making took 5 weeks. We regularly reported mold manufacturing process to customer.

Sampling is performed as schedule. Then T1 samples were shipped to customer for verifying. After receiving T1 samples, customer wants to have some changes on part design. According to the new product drawing, there would be a major change in injection mold. After researching, we didn’t do a new slider but only did welding on old sliders, there was nothing affects the plastic part quality. In this way, there were shorter time and lower cost. After solutions of mold modification was approved by customer, we started set up the mold for re-sampling. 7 days for mold modification.

T2 samples were verified and approved by customer and injection mold runs well. At last we started injection molding of low volume plastic parts.

About shipping, ACO Mold usually quote EXWORK price, we can also do door to door service (DDU) if customer made the request. The reason we quote always EXWROK (or sometimes DDU) is trying to avoid get into this kind of trap: Carrier signed by customer, seller has no chance to bargain the cost but only stick with them.

If your product is in concept stage, contact ACO Mold to get free quote. Engineers from ACO Mold injection molding manufacturing will give you the best solution, and recommend the suitable material for you.