Today’s Micro Molding Challenges, Part 2: Tooling – The Enabler
Today’s Micro Molding Challenges, Part 2: Tooling - The Enabler Today's Micro Molding Challenges, Part 2 pushes forward the discussion on best practices for micro molding. It is well known that micro mold and micromachining are key to the realization of micro molded components and micro automated assemblies. Both capabilities require tooling and fixtures manufactured to extreme precision and positional accuracy in order to produce micro core pins, micro cavity geometry, and microfluidic surfaces. In Part 1: Tooling—the enabler, published in the February issue of CMM, we address the risk-mitigating criteria in micro mold design, focusing on runner style and gate style. This second installment details other such criteria in relation to gate diameter, parting lines, ejection, and cooling. Mold Design Criteria Gate diameter Figure 1 shows gate diameters of…