Well,
wasn’t practical since we didn’t invest in a shredder to go with it. Number of us that would have used the thing more with easier shredding first.
I am sure we even set aside some money for a shredder but it never got built. I could plasma cut the shapes or send them off to be laser cut but that ship has sailed.
We have a fiber laser. Can we use it to make those components?
Even if “that ship has sailed”, I’d be interested in building one for myself and the Plasma Cutter isn’t precise enough to cut those out. You’d need to either use a laser or the HAAS.
Logistics has need of a shredder. Let’s make one
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Oh yes! Put that in the tools list for Logistics, with a link to the rule that says “No Overnight Parking”.
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Not right now. Maybe in the distant future.
I know it’s not set up yet. What I don’t know is how thick of a piece of metal it will cut…
Well… you pose some very important questions. Why bother footing the bill for a piece of equipment that has no proven record of offering a productive advantage to the existing framework. I can see it’s advantage, but my groundwork on the subject is hypothetical and speculative. I am not trained on the HAAS mill, but look forward to becoming so. I just reached a point in my production line where I realized I need to add a very specialized part, and after a bit of tinkering, I came to the conclusion that injection molding is the best solution for my particular job. This is the exact sort of problem I’ve come to rely on Makerspace for, and I’m still looking to find a working solution that fits my budget and timeframe. I understand it’s a lot to ask for the board to invest in a piece of equipment that is not yet specifically tested for integrated usage, but I would be willing to bet it would be a great solution for a variety of applications. Anyhoo, I’ll quit bending your eardrums on this and let everyone get back to whatever it is you do now.
Sincerely,
Liz Becker
I think the better question is why would the organization bother to foot the bill for a piece of equipment that at best would benefit one?
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To all - I found an example of a machine online that is rudimentary enough that I can build it myself with minimal assistance, although I might need a little help from the machine shop regarding what type of steel to use, how to do the precision drilling, etc. My apologies for posting this to a job listings thread, I was intending to post as “off topic”. Thank you in advance for your help.
Liz
Which one did you choose?
There are a few DIY ones I’ve seen that can be built for ~$200. One of the websites that I’ve followed for years give away plans for building everything you need to recycle household plastics and it includes an injection mold machine. They offer plans for a bunch of DIY machines. Even though you don’t need everything they offer, it’s a really cool website!
https://preciousplastic.com/solutions/machines/basic.html
Precision drilling is easy on the “Bridgeports” that have DRO’s, you can locate ± .0001"-.0002" consistently. Depending on how precise the hole finish has to be vs positional location, you may have to buy your own drills and or reamers to ensure proper finish.
As to what type of steels, need to know what type structure it is for to determine strength, chemical resistance to heated plastics, abrasion resistance, etc. If dies, different story as heating and cooling greatly impact cycle time.
If you have a design, it should specify in the Bill of Materials what to use, if reverse engineering, question I’d ask is: where is it made? If China, then probably Chinesium Grade metals, easy to exceed those standards with standard western alloys. If made in West or say Japan then higher grade material very likely will be involved.
Personally, any hand-operated type injector probably isn’t in need of high strength alloys, these are low pressure (meaning less than several thousand pounds of pressure for injection). But again factors for heating, cooling, chemical, and abrasion resistance become factors (but only if volume is high enough to worry about).
Designing and machining the dies is probably and order of magnitude higher than the hand operated injector. Unless a very simple die, best to farm that out to people with the expertise.
Thank you both. That is very informative. The unit I’ve chosen is basically a modified version of a die press, incorporating steel platens that move up and down with steel rods on four corners, a 10 ton jack ( pneumatic is still out of my skill set ) , a microcontroller with a heating element that heats a compression chamber with a piston. I may not be able to knock out thousands of parts in an afternoon, but I can produce enough to keep up with my work flow, which is enough for me. I think I can get this project knocked out in the following week ( with a bit of assistance from someone in the machine shop ) for a little under $500.00… extremely affordable under the circumstances. Since I am untrained on the HAAS ( working up to it, fingers crossed ) I have created an aluminum mold frame by hand. It’s accurate enough for my purposes, and experimentation will inform me where to place the vents, etc.
I forgot to mention these guys:
https://ashindustries.com/products/supermold
Don’t know if this fits in your budget.
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This was the injection molding machine I worked on about 4 years ago. It was very rudimentary, the closest it had to electronics on it was the timer itself. This machine was I believe made in the 60’s IIRC from the Patents I was reading on the wall. It was a somewhat custom machine but I did have to create a wiring diagram for it, which I still have.
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Thank you for your input, David. I appreciate it.
That’s a whole lot of machine there, Tim.