Michelstadt, November 2012. ¡V Making its trade fair debut on the exhibition stand of i-mold GmbH & Co.KG, Michelstadt/Germany, at Euromold (Frankfurt, 27th to 30th November 2012) will be this company¡¦s series of TPS straight standard sub-gates, which are used for classical side gating applications and are suitable for all standard and engineering plastics as well as thermoplastic elastomers . Compared with gates machined directly into the mould, TPS straight standard sub-gates offer a number of advantages when it comes to the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the injection mould:
- The costly spark erosion process for the runner may be waived. Instead, the sub-gate is simply inserted into an exactly mating rectangular recess and screwed in place, either from the side or from underneath.
- The sub-gates are manufactured from a highly wear-resistant material hardened to 54+2 HRC (M2 hot working steel, grade 1.3343) and thus give a very long service, even when used in the processing of abrasive plastics containing a high ratio of fillers and reinforcing agents.
- An integrated dead-end recess reduces shear stress and loss of pressure.
- Even in cases where injection moulds are made by several different toolmakers (which is not unusual in the automotive industry, for example), all gates feature a uniform geometry: gate angle 45¢X, opening angle 20¢X.
- The sub-gates can be easily and quickly changed, thus waiving the otherwise necessary build-up welding and remachining of the gate area, especially in cases where the melt is highly abrasive.
When working with prototype moulds in aluminium, TPS straight standard sub-gates offer an additional advantage: they permit the production of a larger number of parts, especially where the material being processed is glass fibre reinforced. By comparison, a gate machined directly into the aluminium mould would soon become worn and would no longer be serviceable after only a few hundred parts. Hall 9, Stand D28 The TPS straight standard sub-gates are available in four seizes.
The smallest version, the TPS-S, features a gate diameter of 0.4 to 0.8 mm, while the largest version, the TPS-3, features a gate diameter of 1.1 to 4.5 mm. For materials of medium viscosity, the TPS straight standard sub-gates are suitable for maximum shot weights ranging from 20 g (TPS-S) to 1,000 g (TPS-3). The new TPS series is the latest addition to i-mold¡¦s comprehensive range of sub-gates for a multitude of different applications. Besides sub-gates for cashew or banana gating, i-mold also offers several versions with machining allowance for adaptation to specific tooling
requirements.
