First let’s start off by defining barrel residence time and barrel capacity. Barrel residence time is the time the resin spends from the first inception into the injection barrel until it leaves through the end of the nozzle. Barrel capacity is generally rated by the amount of polystyrene they can inject in one shot and [...]

An automotive injection molding company wanted to get more production capacity from their current equipment.  In order to do this, they needed to reduce machine downtime or get better cycle time. Their Process Engineer described the problem:  “Doing a change from black glass-filled PP to unfilled bisque PP (cosmetic appearance); it takes a lot of [...]

Many custom molders have the task of trying to run multiple colors from the same mold and with the same processing parameters.  Even with the latest and greatest technology of molding machines, and all their bells and whistles, plastic resin is still plastic resin.  Whether you are using compounded colors or mixing the colorant into [...]

While visiting a captive injection molding customer in Southern California, I was immediately brought out to the tool room where I was introduced to the Tool Room Manager. He had an injection mold open on the bench, trying to solve a problem. The mold was a PP family mold making four different types of parts. I [...]

To help reduce scrap rates, a premier injection molding supplier in the south, making well known German interior trim parts, recently evaluated ASACLEAN U Grade Purge Compound on an ABS hot runner color transition, going from black to beige on a 500-ton Krauss Maffei injection molding machine equipped with a Synventive hot runner manifold. For [...]

A large automotive injection molding company, molding interior door panels, needed to reduce the time required to go from black polypropylene parts to tan polypropylene parts. They mold interior door panels. While it was a simple color change and was accomplished in under one hour with their current method, they wanted to improve upon that. [...]

A customer sent one of their production molds back to their warehouse with nylon resin still inside, they had not purged out the nylon first. This mold is used in a 40 ton vertical injection molding machine.  The mold was then stored for several days and degradation (carbon deposits) formed during cooling down. After running [...]

During a visit to a custom molder in Guadalajara Mexico, we were pleased to once again see how significant a role Asaclean purge compound can play in our everyday consumer market.   A leading supplier of protective cases for popular smart phones is pumping out dozens of colors for their new smart phone cases.   Using 200 [...]

A captive injection molder producing caps and closures in a high cavitational hot runner manifold called me the other day because they were operating outside of their QA parameters. On one particular line that produces HDPE caps, they were experiencing a problem with the machine if it was stopped for one reason or another. When [...]