best practices
Extrusion: 'Melt-Blown' Fiber: What You Need to Know to Enter the Face Mask Market
Coronavirus pandemic has made extrusion processors curious about entering the face-mask market. But melt-blown fiber is very different from most other extrusion processes and requires specialized equipment.
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Tooling: How to Properly Size Gates, Runners and Sprues; Part 5 of 5
Get the sprue, runner and gate sizes close to ideal the first time around.
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Materials: Annealing Tips for Semi-Crystalline Polymers: Part 4
You can forgo the elevated mold temperatures normally recommended for high-performance semi-crystalline materials. But it’s risky and likely to yield parts that under-perform expectations … assuming that they emerge from the annealing process looking anything like the drawing.
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Use This Check List to Get Your Machine Properly Installed
Whether you bought a new machine or one that’s been refurbished, you need to prepare for installation so that it can be executed as seamlessly as feasible. Here some advice.
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Achieving Continuous Improvement Using SMED Programs
A good SMED quick changeover program can help optimize financial performance by converting non-value-add time into value-add time.
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Extrusion: The Importance of Zone 1 Barrel Temperature
Tweaking the temperature settings of the first barrel zones may not yield the desired result. In fact, they may yield the opposite. Here’s why.
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Tooling: How to Properly Size Gates, Runners and Sprues, Part 4
How to get the sprue, runner and gate sizes close to ideal the first time around.
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Part 3 Materials: Annealing Tips for Semicrystalline Polymers
For these polymers, annealing is done to establish a level of crystallinity that cannot be practically obtained within the parameters of a normal molding cycle. Here’s some guidance on setting annealing time and temperature.
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Fundamentals of Proper Press Shutdown
Press shutdown procedures have a significant impact on achieving smooth machine startups and restarts to improve uptime. Here’s a procedure you might want to deploy in your molding operation.
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Is Your Feeding Technology Robust Enough?
Maybe not. But consider these factors to beef up your system to ensure reliable and even smarter performance.
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