Medical Materials
we didn’t take a metal assembly of maybe a dozen parts and get the part count down to three or four or fi ve,” Kvalo said. “That does multiple good things. It gets the cost down and it mistake-proofs the assembly for the OEM. “You know, the tooling in injection molding is probably the most expensive tooling of any plastic process and technol- ogy—but if you make that investment, you end up with the lowest part cost. And you’re able to put a range of features in the mold that can replace what were separate parts or opera- tions in a metal version of the product.”
EVCO Plastics Class 100,000 (ISO Class 8) clean room in DeForest, WI includes 14 plastic injection molding machines ranging from 28 to 220 tons.
plastic, we’re taking a metal assembly that may have multiple clips and snaps, and we’re able to mold all of those features onto one part. I can’t think of any situation offhand where
Another advantage of plastic is cosmetic, Kvalo noted. “In many applications, plastic is going to stay newer-looking longer than steel. Steel corrodes; paint on steel scratches, but colored plastic is the same color all the way through.”
Get the Lead Out
Another strong impetus to move from metal to plastic is ecological: there are metals, such as lead, that can damage
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | May 2014
Photo courtesy EVCO Plastics
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