Isometric Micro Molding is the only micro molding company in the world with 4 in-house key capabilities for successful micro molding: Micro mold building, Micro molding, Micro Automation, and CT Scanning Metrology. These are the four key factors for controlling quality and delivery for micro molding and assembly success. This blog will cover all four elements over time to help the reader with risk mitigation of micro molding devices. Our first blog series will focus on the micro mold design and build.
High volume micro molding requires a specialized and proven process before the first plastic pellet is melted. Plan, plan, plan, execute is key to each micro molding project’s success. Talking about the mold isn’t always a comfort zone for those seeking micro molded plastic parts, however understanding the mirror image of the part is key to understanding the design history and risk mitigation factors associated with minimally invasive and implantable medical device design.
Micro Mold Making
Make no bones about it, the mold is truly the enabling component to the device all the way down to the pack-out stage. It cannot be overlooked or outsourced because internal understanding of the design is key to establishing metrology datums, venting for sharp corners and features, and building reinforcements around hair sized components to reduce risk in the tooling capital investment for the customer. A sound micro mold design starts with building around part tolerances. Regardless of tolerance, the mold should be built to 20% of tolerance to leave 80% of that tolerance in molding, assembly, and inspection gage R&R. With micro molding reduction of part size is directly proportional to part tolerances, and even If tolerances are +/- single microns, the steel needs to 20% to give the 1.33 cpk a fighting chance in the end.
Stay tuned for the next blog for more on this topic and send an email to [email protected] for micro molding expertise with your current or next project. Check back each week for future technical help with your tiny, micro devices.
