SECTION TITLE
MATERIALS • PROCESSES • FINISHES
MICRO MOULDING
Roger Hargens details the need for collaboration and DfM A
lthough there are many companies already well versed in the use of micro moulding in their product development cycles,
there are a larger number that recognise the business need to produce smaller and smaller and often more complex and innovative products and components, but cannot see an obvious route to attain these goals. Tere is a general understanding
throughout industry that micro moulding is not just “macro moulding but smaller”. Tere comes a point when making things smaller that the process to achieve this needs to change, and here the analogy of folding paper is often used. When you fold paper in half, and you have a piece of paper half the size of the original. Fold it again, it is a quarter the size. However, when you get to the
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simply don’t work at the micro level. Te flow of molten plastic, its cooling, warpage, necessary venting and gating, etc., are all different when moulding at the micro scale, and to a greater or lesser extent the process needs to be relearned. Most (if not all) OEMs undertaking
OEMs must work with micro moulders that are able to design, build and maintain moulds in house
seventh fold, it is impossible to achieve, so to reduce the surface area the process (folding) has to change.
Tis is much the same when looking at moulding. Tere is a certain set of rules and understandings of the moulding process at the macro level that
micro moulding at scale outsource their production, so the “way” that micro moulding works, while relevant, should not be seen as a barrier to engagement. In a nutshell, your chosen micro moulding expert will take away the need for you to understand the vagaries of the characteristics of thermoplastics when moulding small! However, there are a number of other areas that any OEM must begin to focus beyond the micro moulding process per se, and these will be analysed in this article.
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