Ooh look at this! Injection molding

Very cool injection molder:

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These are cool,

Not sure if it would ever have a home a DMS though. These are pretty strictly in the Mass Production category of tools and don’t really fit the kinds of things done at DMS. How many items would you need to make, to offset your time in making molds vs multiple 3d prints of an item?

Would make a pretty table weight though. But, DMS recently accepted a table top pick in place as a pretty table weight already.

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He said they are injecting into 3D printed molds… not sure what material. But this would surely be a LOT faster than printing individual pieces.

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I’ve been following this project and if DMS wanted it as a learning opportunity it’s good (maybe a little less safe than 3D printing) but if DMS dismissed this because it’s not useful for the general membership, then so is the vacuum former. High temp resin printed molds wouldn’t be too difficult to come up with DMS equipment. You can actually make injection molds out of wood.

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@themitch22 and @mdredmond,
I too have followed a bit of this project. It isn’t from lack of interest by myself or some personal axe I have to grind between you two that informs my view on this machine and it’s fit in Dallas Makerspace. Instead, I lean on my understanding of what people do at DMS.

Matt you bring up 3d printed molds. I too watched the video and saw the nut covers he was able to make. Cool use, yes. Faster than just printing 4 nut covers at DMS on an FDM printer, likely no. The 3d printed mold they used was a Resin Print, that would take a very long time to print given the size, without even counting the mold design time and possible multiple versions of the mold needed to get a good part.

So, the question becomes, how many of an item would you need to make it worth the time to design a mold, 3d print it and produce the parts before you are out producing the production of our 3d printers? My guess would be given the build size likely 30 to 100 of the same thing being generous on the low end. Also, that is not considering any wear on the mold.

Staying on molds, Mitch brought up wooden molds, another cool idea. Simple forms in wooden molds could be produced much quicker than the similar sized resin molds and have a likely much cheap cost than resin. But, this still doesn’t remove the complexity of designing a working mold. I would also expect wooden mold to need more surface prep after machining if not also special coating to aid in release of the item. But, this is a persuasive idea vs 3d printed mold for the item I could see more people learning injection molding around.

Next point, if injection molding isn’t useful enough, what about the Vacuum Former? Unfortunately, I think this point actually supports my view that this wouldn’t be a good fit. We have an AWESOME vacuum forming machine at DMS. It not only offers a mass production type tool, it also offer a method for making 1 off items we couldn’t make with other tools at DMS. All that is great! But, while a cool tool that offers a lot, the complexity around mold making side lines the tool for the over whelming majority of DMS members. Add in the lack of a built in user base already in DMS and you have the explanation as to why use of the Vacuum Former hasn’t taken off with the membership. Great tool, just not getting use by members.

Another point by Mitch was Safety. I didn’t consider safety in my initial view on this machine. I think the pinch point is far less of a concern given the 2 button actuator. But, spraying the user with Molten High Pressure Plastic is a real concern. Even the inventor/builder of this machine was startled when the plastic sprayed out of his 3d printed mold. But, it seemed his mold was in some way designed properly for excess material to come out. Now lets talk about DMS users, designing their first ever molds, some likely without any instruction. What would be the damage of being sprayed in the face with a high pressure stream of molten plastic? I would think a face hit with molten ABS plastic at 300+ degrees would be 2nd and 3rd degree burns almost instantly as the material is hot and would likely stick to you while burning you.

I’m still in the cool tool, but not a fit for DMS camp. But, you can likely talk a Board Member or Committee Head into burning budget on a tool that won’t get much use or really add any new activity for the general membership.

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I think there is Great Value for makers in learning how to make molds and using them. They may have a project down the road. People could prototype and see what the final product output would be, mold release issues, etc. If acceptable they could then have professional production dies made or possibly make them at DMS on say the Haas, depending on the cavity geometry.

I think at best this level of machine can be considered a prototyping or very short run machine. It is way too slow for production work - it basically has to stop to reload the small hopper.

The worry about high pressure leakage is a serious and real concern, but also easy enough to control and mitigate: a simple swing away Lexan cover(s) can be used. These types of covers are often found on industrial machines: Water Jets are a good example, they enclose them. In fact on machines I’ve seen the cover has to be all the down and in place to engage the safety interlock before the operator button outside can begin the work cycle. Most hydraulic lines have covers over hoses or couplings, Cold Cut Saw is a good example.

But as a learning tool on how to design molds and then being able to test them I believe is invaluable. I’m not sure why DMS would even want a production capable level machine unless it is to support someone operating a business out of DMS.

Is it a machine DMS wants? Is there enough demand for it. Over the years I’ve had people ask me making dies and molds, I think there is real interest. I guess part of that comes down to part of the philosophy about DMS’s mission: Tools for members on how to create, develop skills, make prototypes for tests or/and next level tools that allow members to do production runs. The former I believe is well within our mission scope, the later I would submit is for those organizations whose charter falls more into incubators for companies and start-ups. While they have overlap they are different in structure and goals.

Right now I’m working on a forming block that will be used to make a single part on the vacuum form. The surface profile of forming block I will make out of wood that has the complex compound contours that will fit on a portable A/C unit that should greatly increase it’s efficiency. People make custom candy, jello, cookie molds or custom tool trays for their tool boxes on the vacuum former. Maybe 1-4 copies - but they now have made their custom molds and have pride of achievement.

One reason I find these machines interesting is as an opportunity to recycle waste, largely from 3D printing but from other plastic sources as well. Not 100% sure what I would want to make with said waste but I have a few ideas. One thing I think is of immediate need would be dogs for the Multicam, could be pretty easy to pop out a bunch of those. Small plastic items can definitely be useful, though they can also just be trinkets that people make and then discard.

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A YouTube channel called “Brothers Make” recycles Type 2 plastic and they make and use molds of everyday items to sell in their shop. I think if DMS were to obtain a devise similar to this, it would need to be a design that provides practical everyday uses so that people wouldn’t want to simply discard it and in turn create more waste in our landfills after we attempted to recycle and up-use. There are companies like Precious Plastics that links to companies who also make molds for intrusion.

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@Photomancer literally any tool could be argued as educational. But, not having teachers or an actual user base in the DMS is the issue with this injection molding machine when it come to education.

Is it a machine DMS wants? (your question) I believe beyond a handful of people in this chat, no it isn’t a tool DMS as a whole wants. When I think about tools DMS members really want, I think of a Water Jet Cutter. That is a tool that would quickly have a user base at DMS and thus would attract members willing to teach and maintain the machine. But, cost and complexity are the concerns with it.

The injection molder is Expensive (cheaper than water jet though), Complicated to use as you need to develop your own tooling to use it, doesn’t have an excited group at DMS wanting to use or willing to teach and maintain it. Add safety concerns, clean up concerns, and it being from a no one company. Seems like a bad bet.

@Hanna_Kessler and @angelica, personally I find the recycling idea interesting. We produce plastic waste in 3d printing and having a cool give away we could make from it would be a fun thing to spotlight at DMS. The catch is how? Recycling used 3d filament would require collection boxes, processing of material (including separating plastics types), designing an item, creation or purchase of a mold, then doing the project as a demonstration for tours. This would be cool advertising thing for DMS!

But, would it actually help the environment? Making tchotchkes that will likely also end up in the trash doesn’t cut down on plastic waste. Also, you have the new plastic that needs to be added to the recycled plastic to make it high enough quality to use, further lessoning the actual amount of possible recycling happening. This is the discussion I’ve been watching in the 3d printing community for 2 years now. As concerns around plastics waste from 3D printing adding to plastics in the ocean has been gaining traction.

My best argument to support the injection molding machine is, we don’t make a tchotchke, we make something useful like a tool. In middle school shop I did over molding with an injection molding machine. We made cool little screw drivers with over molded grips that had the name of my middle school in them. I held on to that screw driver for 10+ years and always liked knowing I had made it. But, when I looked up the parts to do this, the screw driver blade without a handle was $7+ each. That seems to expensive to make this happen. Do you two have a better item and people willing to do a tour style demonstration?

You bring very valid points to the matter! Right off the bat the item I thought of was a mallet made from recycled plastics. I’m still learning the entire process at home and it is very time consuming. Organizing, cleaning, and shredding the plastics is not for the faint. However I’ve still never successfully made a product from start to finish (and I n a budget) to volunteer to demonstrate the process.

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True! I make fireworks as a hobby, so I keep a keen eye out for ways to recycle rather than buy new. As for recycling plastic, I too have found it difficult to make a product I want to use at a price cheaper than buying new. I went through a kick of making plastic cord from plastic bottles. It is cheap and easy, but it isn’t great cordage.

I also made plastic bag sleeping mats with my mother’s Altrusa group to donate to the shelters in Texas. We gathered a ton of bags quickly and made some mats. Then a Grocery Store heard about it and tried to donate a pallet of new bags to make more mats. But, it was a lot of labor and using new bags wasn’t even recycling. So we asked for a cash donation from the Grocery Store, rather than the pallet of bags. We were able to then pass that donation to a few shelters so they could spend it on items they needed. Like actual padded sleeping mats rather than kind of junk grocery bag mats. Here is a video showing how to make them.

Recycling plastic is tuff and it can quickly develop into just making new stuff with almost no actual recycling at small scale. Plus the cost of time, energy, and supplies often make it more expensive.

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IMO, consumer-grade plastic recycling won’t make any sense until it’s economical to turn it back into raw hydrocarbons (depolymerization).

Right now depolymerization works, but requires too much energy input to be economical. Add some solar or nukular power and maybe…

Very cheap power makes so many things more viable, especially in the realms of recycling.

I understand the issues with Solar; expensive, low efficiency of conversion of power (best being 39% efficient, but the majority of installs being 20% efficient or worse), a lot of land needed, variable output due to weather, variable output due to cleaning, further efficiency loss over time. But, nuclear power still looks like the magic bullet to me, yet it seems socially out of the conversation. I would guess the reasoning being that there have been major accidents. Yet, it seems we could and in many cases have solved the problems we’ve had with nuclear power production. I just don’t understand how it isn’t beaten into our heads as the solution.

Well nuclear energy is great but it’s also acutely dangerous and scary. Netflix recently released a very anti-nuclear 3 Mile Island documentary which was an interesting watch. Of course we hear about radiation exposure and the increased cancer risk from that event. There’s also the potential for nuclear disasters to create exclusion zones. I do believe nuclear energy can be handled safely. I’ve actually visited Idaho National Laboratories Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility on a couple occasions. That facility is so well controlled that they do tours for high schoolers.

I walked right past this pool of spent fuel rods and over a catwalk to look at the Cherenkov radiation and when tested immediately after showed no notable exposure to radiation. They were actually more worried about us tripping the machines if we wore synthetic materials because the natural radon in the air would cling to them.

That being said, I certainly have my concerns at the idea of private companies managing such dangerous operations, and I wouldn’t be moving anywhere near a nuclear power plant anytime soon.

Oh how I love DMS. We went from Injection Molding to Nuclear Energy. What a nice discussion.

But back to Injection Molding. I have been watching their development via YouTube as well, they have made a great tool. Like the form factor and the shot size. If it we me I would move the two button actuator to a pendant (at least to the top of the machine). Like @Nick I would be concerned with a spray of hot plastic. While most leaks are large enough, the plastic just kinda of blobs out. The right size hole in the wrong place could reach out and get you. Having been on the board that dealt with a similar issue this is a real concern.

An injection Molding machine would find a user base but would really be limited and small. And with all tools DMS really needs to spend more time on considering the use cases and the ability to support a tool. The initial purchase is only one small part of the costs.

I have a heated pressure pot system that is for conformal coatings that can do low-mid temp plastics. I considered donating it to DMS but was super concerned about being liable for people using it. It is scary!

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