When you’re getting ready to begin the injection molding process, the first choice you make—and one of the most crucial decisions—is which plastic mold manufacturing partner you’ll select. The partner you choose should, of course, deliver on all your mold requirements—but they should also prototype your part, help you with part design adjustments, warranty their work, and much more. And most importantly, the right partner will ensure you don’t end up with a useless mold that doesn’t produce quality parts—or, as we like to call a faulty mold.
- Can you build a tool that will match my annual volume requirement?
Molds are most often constructed customised as per the client requirement. There is a variation in every mold as cavity number, hot runner, Becu, Mechanism, the hardening of the material used, the maintenance required, and the cycles it can tolerate before it requires adjustments. A good plastic mold manufacturing partner will walk you through the benefits and considerations and guide you to the solution that is ideal for your situation.
- Can we get a warranty on the tool?
Be advised: Many plastic mold manufacturing companies do not offer warranties unless you specifically request one. Even if they do, study the ins and outs of the warranty and precisely what it covers before signing on the dotted line.
At Copar, we typically warranty the tool for example, for up to one million cycles without any cost to the customer. This means we’d cover any and all maintenance and/or expense on the mold up to that point. So if you have a 48-cavity tool from Copar, this warranty would last you through 48 million parts, also there is extension of warranty as per the client request.
- Do you do mold-making in house or are they made overseas?
Some plastic mold manufacturers simply broker a mold deal between your company and an overseas mold maker.
Copar import the raw material from Europe ‘’Bohler Uddehom’’and the Hot Runner from our partners but the hardening, designing, CNC, Assembly, Testing, Quality Control, Heat treatment are in house.
- Do you have the ability to rapid prototype or 3D print parts to reveal potential flaws in the design?
The creation of your tool is one of the most expensive parts of the injection molding process, so doing it wrong is not an option. You can make adjustments in the prototyping stage until the mold is correct. Copar gives an option to the customers to see alternate ideas, or flaws in the design, helps us both in making a better part.
- What materials will the finished mold be able to handle?
Copar depends on customer’s choice and gives recommendations depending on the part requirement, functioning &shape. We are open on the characteristic of many type of material. We advise, we recommend but the last call is the customer’s call.
- How do you achieve the right mold tolerances?
To achieve tight tolerances, parts designers need a good plan for designing and launching their products. That’s why it’s essential for product designers and manufacturers to plan for tight tolerances from the very beginning. Achieving tight tolerances takes the perfect combination of part design, tool design, material selection, tooling strategy and upfront planning makes all the difference. A manufacturing by design process can help designers think through their needs for a tight-tolerance part.
- What is your process for high-cavitation molding?
If you need a high-cavity mold, find out how your potential mold manufacturing partner manages the mold building process. For example, to ensure that plastic evenly distributes in your high-cavitation mold, your partner should include a high-quality hot manifold (used to inject plastic into the mold) to assist with this distribution process and special design for the mold.
- Can you validate that the mold will work?
To validate what they build, your mold manufacturing partner will need to sample the tool to ensure it produces quality parts.Be sure that the tool is sampled at the same cycle and cooling time you’ll need when you move to production. For example, if your part requires a 30-second cycle time and the part needs to cool for 15 seconds, but the sample only includes a 2 second cooling stage, the sample parts won’t be an accurate reproduction of what you’ll get during production.
- How quickly can you turn out a mold?
Everyone wants something fast, cheap, and high quality—but we typically tell our customers they can have two out of three. For example, if you want a high-quality mold created fast, it’ll cost you. And some mold manufacturers specialize in rapid tooling, but these molds are typically fast and cheap but not high quality. At any rate, be sure that the mold manufacturing company you select can turn out a mold in the timeline you require.