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Bench-top Injection Molders

Langmuir

Plastic
Joined
Feb 18, 2020
Hello all, my company has recently decided to replace our old bench-top injection molder (an A-100 from Galomb inc., which I think doesn't even exist anymore) and I've been tasked with getting us into the 21st century. As such I've tried to do so homework and found three injection molders that I think would fit the bill:
Does anyone have any experience or pros/cons with any of these machines or their manufacturers? Specifically I'd like to know which of these tools would be best for handling PVC molding, I know this material can be somewhat corrosive so if anyone knows how easy it is to replace the heating barrel on any of these machines that would also be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
 
It would be helpful to know the weight of your part including sprue and runner if any and the clamp tonnage of the machines you are replacing.
Dennis
 
A few more questions... boring grinding job today :D

Is this for production, or prototyping work?

Is there a reason you need a vertical? (like doing insert molding of some sort)

Dennis
 
It would be helpful to know the weight of your part including sprue and runner if any and the clamp tonnage of the machines you are replacing.

A few more questions... boring grinding job today :D

Is this for production, or prototyping work?

Is there a reason you need a vertical? (like doing insert molding of some sort)

Dennis

Thanks for replying Dennis, I'll admit I'm a chemist and I'm not incredibly familiar with injection molding so my answers might be somewhat incorrect but I can find more information from our engineering team if need be:

1. Including the sprue and runner the parts are ~1 oz when we use a typical "bar" mold, though typically we only utilize the current injection molder for the raw injection "noodle" that is extruded out, due both to the limitations of the current injection molder as well as the fact that at the testing stage we don't typically need a lot of material or the final form.
2. Prototyping, this is for the formulations lab.
3. No reason to my knowledge it has to be vertical, these are just the injection molders I found that seem like they would be more efficient than a simple lever press.
 
Hi, sorry I took so long to get back to this.

I'm a production molder, so I'm not really attuned to prototyping work. I do know somebody who was molding test coupons for weatherability testing, or was until the work went to China. I seem to recall he needed to mold a couple hundred at a time, so a vertical machine would have been a disadvantage, since someone has to attend it to remove each part, with a horizontal the parts just drop into a box. Vertical presses are typically used for insert molding, say over molding the plastic plug over the metal contacts on a lamp cord, since gravity can be used to keep the metal parts in place until the mold closes. It doesn't sound like you need this.

If you are doing test bars, it sounds like there are a lot of material changes involved. I'd be looking for a reciprocating screw type extruder, as they purge faster and more completely. Plunger presses have places where material can hang up and continue to bleed into the new material for a long time. Screw extruders also do a much better job of mixing the material. If you have any intention of mixing color into the resin, say the customer wants the material AS IT WILL BE IN PRODUCTION tested, a plunger press won't mix modern day color concentrate into the melt.

The only one of the presses you linked to that I have any experience is the Morgan. I worked developing some tooling with a guy who bought one, and it was a joke. Pneumatic presses are slow, noisy, and this Morgan required 175 PSI air to make it's rated capacity, and a compressor to supply that pressure was noisy also. I know someone else who was trying to do short production runs on a Morgan, and from the problems he was having, I don't think it was ever developing its rated clamp tonnage. As to our experiance with the Morgan, it came to an abrupt halt when I picked up a WWII era Van Dorn hydraulically operated plunger press for a couple hundred bucks. Much better machine, and the Morgan went up for sale with less than ten hours on it.

I watched the video on the APSX-PIM all electric machine... sloooooow... I know you don't need high speed production, but I suspect purging is going to be equally slow. I suppose I'm biased, but hydraulics are well understood, and 3000 PSI allows a lot of work to be done with small volume cylinders that fill and empty quickly.

Hope this was helpful. There are not a lot of molders on these forums. Good luck with your search.

Dennis
[h=1][/h]
 
Hi, sorry I took so long to get back to this.

I'm a production molder, so I'm not really attuned to prototyping work. I do know somebody who was molding test coupons for weatherability testing, or was until the work went to China. I seem to recall he needed to mold a couple hundred at a time, so a vertical machine would have been a disadvantage, since someone has to attend it to remove each part, with a horizontal the parts just drop into a box. Vertical presses are typically used for insert molding, say over molding the plastic plug over the metal contacts on a lamp cord, since gravity can be used to keep the metal parts in place until the mold closes. It doesn't sound like you need this.

If you are doing test bars, it sounds like there are a lot of material changes involved. I'd be looking for a reciprocating screw type extruder, as they purge faster and more completely. Plunger presses have places where material can hang up and continue to bleed into the new material for a long time. Screw extruders also do a much better job of mixing the material. If you have any intention of mixing color into the resin, say the customer wants the material AS IT WILL BE IN PRODUCTION tested, a plunger press won't mix modern day color concentrate into the melt.

The only one of the presses you linked to that I have any experience is the Morgan. I worked developing some tooling with a guy who bought one, and it was a joke. Pneumatic presses are slow, noisy, and this Morgan required 175 PSI air to make it's rated capacity, and a compressor to supply that pressure was noisy also. I know someone else who was trying to do short production runs on a Morgan, and from the problems he was having, I don't think it was ever developing its rated clamp tonnage. As to our experiance with the Morgan, it came to an abrupt halt when I picked up a WWII era Van Dorn hydraulically operated plunger press for a couple hundred bucks. Much better machine, and the Morgan went up for sale with less than ten hours on it.

I watched the video on the APSX-PIM all electric machine... sloooooow... I know you don't need high speed production, but I suspect purging is going to be equally slow. I suppose I'm biased, but hydraulics are well understood, and 3000 PSI allows a lot of work to be done with small volume cylinders that fill and empty quickly.

Hope this was helpful. There are not a lot of molders on these forums. Good luck with your search.

Dennis
[h=1][/h]

Dennis, Yes I think your biased on this issue and it is perfectly normal to think that way if you have been dealing with conventional injection molding machines for years. APSX-PIM is a brand new concept, all-electric (115V standard outlet) and does not require any water or air connections. So that means a quick start whenever you need it. Not everybody has a 240V power connection or high pressured air available.
PURGE: With a plunger-type mechanism, it takes about 5 minutes to purge and start with new material.
COLOR PELLETS: It can use pre-colored pellets or liquid type colorants when you need certain color parts. PP. PE, Nylon, ABS, Delrin, PC and more are the options.
NOISE: It is not noisier than your vehicle interior. Watch the showroom video on our website or on youtube.
SPEED: If you need about 1000 cycles each day, APSX-PIM is not slow at all. We ran it almost 24/7 one week (5-days) and made more than 15000 parts (3 cavity mold). The definition of "slow" or "fast" depends on the need.
COST: $12500 purchase price plus almost zero variable maintenance cost. We know that sometimes just one mold would cost that much since big machines use big molds even if you need a small batch of parts.
I hope that helps.
Rick
 
Karl,

I'd be interested in the APSX-PIM, and have been looking forward to seeing them out int the world. On paper is seems like a better option than something like the Morgan for shops like the OP. I expected there'd be a bunch of youtube videos and forum posts by now(maybe not here, but on the hobby forums). But there has been nothing.

Are you having a hard time selling them? Or isn't anybody getting results they want to talk about? What's the deal?
 
Karl,

I'd be interested in the APSX-PIM, and have been looking forward to seeing them out int the world. On paper is seems like a better option than something like the Morgan for shops like the OP. I expected there'd be a bunch of youtube videos and forum posts by now(maybe not here, but on the hobby forums). But there has been nothing.

Are you having a hard time selling them? Or isn't anybody getting results they want to talk about? What's the deal?

Hi LOTT,
Started selling them in mid-2017. Doubled sales in 2018 and 2019. We assemble them at full capacity so far. If you are concerned about the "reviews" you can schedule a showroom visit or a live video conference. We do not buy "reviews" like other companies since we do not need that currently. We got the results we wanted with the APSX-PIM and APSX SPYDER CNC. They both run and make parts for us since 2107. We use those parts on the machines we sell. Typically we sold to R&D facilities, small-volume production companies (medical, special cables, high-tech) and technical schools so far. Our guess is that they do not want to show what they do.
 
Karl, I want this to be a real option, but still skeptical. You don't have to buy "reviews", people like to talk about what they get. Good and bad, I can't even find complaints about your machine, it's strange.

Do you have any users I can visit in North Carolina? Or near wherever the OP is in Texas?
 
Huge thanks to everyone who has replied thus far, hadn't had a chance to recheck since this afternoon so sorry for delayed reply.
To follow up we've narrowed it down to either the EM 55 or the APSX-PIM with a slightly heavier lean towards the EM 55 based on the screw capabilities that Dennis highlighted as well as the fact that they have been the most responsive vendor I've talked to (proof customer service still isn't dead to some people, lol!).

I plan to follow-up with them a bit more in terms of testing capabilities but I'll do my best to make sure I let everyone know what we went with and how we like it.
Thanks again to everyone for applying your expertise!
 
Huge thanks to everyone who has replied thus far, hadn't had a chance to recheck since this afternoon so sorry for delayed reply.
To follow up we've narrowed it down to either the EM 55 or the APSX-PIM with a slightly heavier lean towards the EM 55 based on the screw capabilities that Dennis highlighted as well as the fact that they have been the most responsive vendor I've talked to (proof customer service still isn't dead to some people, lol!).

I plan to follow-up with them a bit more in terms of testing capabilities but I'll do my best to make sure I let everyone know what we went with and how we like it.
Thanks again to everyone for applying your expertise!

No problem. Let us know if you want to see one of our machines in action live or not. Is that EM 55 machine capable of running continuously with auto ejection? We have not heard them before so we even do not know their pricing too. Thanks for the information.
 
You really sure you need an injection molding press for that? Most material development dogbones are done with a simple Carver press and a "mold" with the dogbone shape in it (flat plate at the thickness you want cut all the way through). Dump in pellets or powder or whatever form you have, heat up the press, squish it, and it is compression molded. Sure injection is much nicer overall but takes a lot more knowledge to run well. With the compression model you need to get a feel for how much to fill by hand, and properties will never be as good as fully extruder mixed melted pellets, but it is quick and easy. As long as you are doing things the same way for different samples to compare, you should get good comparative data, at the minimum.

If you want a real but very small scale injection press, look into Boy machines (German or Austrian, I forget).
 
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GO AWAY SPAMMER!!!! Seriously, even if I were interested in such a product, I would never buy from you just because you're spamming a valuable resource.

Ok, you can have your job back now Digger Doug.
 
GO AWAY SPAMMER!!!! Seriously, even if I were interested in such a product, I would never buy from you just because you're spamming a valuable resource.

Ok, you can have your job back now Digger Doug.

It's not my job....I just got fed up with management doing nothing, so started calling the spammers out.

Please, feel free to help, it's all good.

Just make sure when you quote the spammer, go inside the quote and remove the linky (or edit it creatively) so the spammer doesn't get yet another "Google ranking"
from your post.
 
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You really sure you need an injection molding press for that? Most material development dogbones are done with a simple Carver press and a "mold" with the dogbone shape in it (flat plate at the thickness you want cut all the way through). Dump in pellets or powder or whatever form you have, heat up the press, squish it, and it is compression molded. Sure injection is much nicer overall but takes a lot more knowledge to run well. With the compression model you need to get a feel for how much to fill by hand, and properties will never be as good as fully extruder mixed melted pellets, but it is quick and easy. As long as you are doing things the same way for different samples to compare, you should get good comparative data, at the minimum.

If you want a real but very small scale injection press, look into Boy machines (German or Austrian, I forget).
APSX-PIM machine can process ASTM tensile dogbone specimens easily. Visit their site for more information.
 








 
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