Flexible Solutions

Benefits for Plastic Injection Molders: Vendor consolidation, value add Solutions

Why is it so imperative that plastic injection molding companies provide value added services and secondary manufacturing services to their customers after molding their parts? The answer is easy! Many end-customers of plastic injection molders are looking for vendor consolidation and supply chain simplification. They want to cut out and skip steps in their supply chain, sequentially helping to reduce costs and save time!

Just about everything that has been engineered is likely to experience vibration. Unfortunately, it has been proven that vibration can be responsible for causing extreme damage to some applications. The source of vibration can come from impact, internal motors or external sources. Vibration happens all around us whether we know it or not. Sometimes it’s evident when you hear buzzing, squeaking, or rattling noises such as when you run your noisy washing machine or dish washer. Other times you may notice the sensation of vibration when you are driving a car over a bumpy road or when you see the cables on a bridge shaking back and forth on a windy day. Most of us experience the harsh impact of an object when we drop our cell phones on the solid ground.

When choosing a foam for a product design, one feature that should be considered is the compression set resistance of the foam.  C-Set is one of the most important characteristics to consider, and this blog post answers three basic questions to explain why. 

Imagine going 65 mph in your vehicle while on a road trip. The road you are driving on is old, so your vehicle bobs up and down the many dips and divots; your speakers are loud and are causing your rearview mirror to vibrate, making it hard to see; and your moon roof has a roaring noise sneaking through the cracks. These foul disturbances are examples of NVH, also known as Noise Vibration Harshness.

Marian has a brand new demonstration piece to share with the world! Strategically named "Test My Memory," the demo illustrates the impact of compression cycling over time with 4 different foams. Neoprene, Polyethelyne, PORON Urethane, and BISCO Silicone are tested by being compressed for 48 hours.

Foam Material Compression

In the demonstration, you will see that certain foams depreciate as they take on impact over time, whereas other foams resist the compression set by returning to their original thickness. The material characteristic of being able to take a compression set, also called compression force defection, is extremely important in long-term sealing applications. The ability of the material to "push back" to fill in any potential gaps that would allow water or dust to pass through is critical. This makes such materials an excellent option for sealing gaskets. We wrote an entire blog post about compression force defection, you can read it here: Compression Force Deflection in Foam Gaskets: A Critical Property