Page 34 - Platics News June 2022

How to Set Up Mold Protect on Your Injection Machine

Jason Robinson
e pressure aspect is the most important setting for mold protect on your Inje tion Molding machine. Closing pressure is
the most important aspect of mold-protect settings. It is advisable to use as little pressure as possible to get the mold closed

3. Speed and Pressure During Mold
Protect
Now that we’ve established starting and
ending points for mold protect, we need
to se the speed and pressure that we al-
low the machine to reach during mold
protect. Generally, you want to slow
down during this transition period and
set the pressure low enough that if there’s
something in the way of the mold halves,
it will stall the clamp movement and give
a clamp alarm.
e pressure aspect is the most impor-
tant setting for mold protect. You want
to use as little pressure as possible to get
the mold from the mold-protect start
position to clamp-up position. If the
pressure is too high, the clamp might
not stop on a part that is in the way. You
esides the injection molding ma- to start mold protect.Close the mold un-
Bchine itself, the second most expen- til there is a small gap between the mold can experiment by slowly lowering your
sive piece of equipment that we use on half and the protruding part of the other pressure eventually getting to a point
a daily basis is the mold. When a mold half that is at risk of damage. en look where the mold doesn’t get to clamp-up
is damaged, you don’t have to bear just at the mold position on the controller to position anymore—but be sure to do this
with clean and greased leader pints and
the cost of repairs, but also the cost of see where you want the mold protect to
downtime and labor. at’s why it’s so begin. For the mold shown above, that grates. Resist the urge to raise the pres-
sure anytime the mold doesn’t clamp,
important to set up mold protect to position is 1.69 in. So we set the low- because there might be something in the
safeguard against damage. If done cor- pressure mold-protect position for 1.69 way, or the leader pins might be dirty.
rectly, it is possible to get the mold to in. at is where mold protect will start. Don’t raise the pressure clean the pins.
stop on something as thin as a business 2. End Position of Mold Protect
card. Here are three key components to Following these simple steps will help
setting up mold protect on your injec- You want to stop protecting the mold protect your valuable mold asset
tion press. once it is completely closed. is is
called clamp-up position or mold-touch
1. Start Position of Mold Protect position on the machine. Clamp up the
Here’s a simple way to think about start mold in manual mold-set mode until
position: When the mold is closing, there is no gap between the mold halves.
when do you get to the point where Read the position on the machine con-
something might break in the mold? troller—for the image above, the mold
In the image above, that point would position is 0.03 in. Set the clamp posi-
be when the mold hits the leader pins. tion on the machine slightly higher than
is is the point where we would want the actual position to protect it.

34 PLASTICS NEWS June 2022