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Sampling

The initial process of injection mold sampling can take weeks, consuming hours of lost production. Diamond Tool & Engineering focuses on efficient delivery of quality production-ready molds so you can get into production fast
Our process usually starts with creating a ‘steel safe’ machined injection mold tool per customer specifications. ‘Steel safe’ is the process of machining a tool to the inside tolerance dimensions so we have some additional steel, allowing for possible tuning or modifications after mold production or during the sampling process.
Our injection mold sampling process includes production testing to examine any issues that could affect the moldability of a part. Gating, venting, ejection issues are examined and corrected. Our service includes working collaboratively with your production engineers, saving engineering time by: modeling molds, adjusting geometry, sampling molds, and modifying molds.

Mold Flow Analysis

In mold flow analysis we examine the filling, packing, and cooling of a plastic part to ensure you can produce parts as designed during the first mold trial – avoiding costly and time-consuming tooling rework.

Packing Analysis

The next step is packing analysis. During the packing stage, the non-filled portion of the mold is packed with additional material to compensate for the loss of volume that occurs during shrinkage as the mold is held under pressure while the plastic resin solidifies.

Filling Analysis

During filling analysis, the first step in mold optimization, we optimize the melt front advancement of plastic resin as it moves through the part from the injection location.

Evaluation

During evaluation of the filling and packing stages, we examine:

  • Gas trap areas

  • Gate positioning

  • Gate sizing

  • Material selection

  • Molded-in stresses

  • Molding optimization

  • Pressure requirement

  • Runner sizing

  • Sink marks

  • Tonnage requirements

  • Weld line location

Mold Cooling Analysis

Accurately determining the cycle time requires analyzing the cooling phase of the molding process. During this analysis we determine the cooling condition necessary for the appropriate coolant temperature. Additionally, we optimize the coolant flow rate to ensure coolant turbulence and cycle time based on the specified ejection temperature.

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During evaluation of the cooling stage, we analyze:

  • Circuit pressure drops

  • Conformal and traditional cooling line comparison

  • Cycle time optimization

  • Warpage

  • Optimize baffles and bubblers

  • Optimize coolant conditions

  • Select high-conductivity inserts

  • Transient thermal analysis

Warp Analysis

Preventing excessive warpage and distortion of a precision injection molded plastic part is critical to getting a tool into production fast. Warp and distortion is a factor of part design, resin, fiber orientation, the molding process, and the cooling process. We work with our customers to identify and minimize warpage and distortion issues during the sampling process for superior mold optimization.

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