What Is Insert Molding?

We can produce a mature component by combining metal and plastic or many different metals. We sometimes regard that process as injection molding with metal inserts or metal insert molding. Insert molding (molding) can be used in automobile, cooker, household equipment, instruments, devices, knobs, electrical components and other industries. Insert molding not only reduces assembly and labor costs, but also performs better than simply assembling parts. It reduces the size and weight of parts, improves the reliability of parts, and provides improved strength and structure of parts through enhanced design flexibility.

1. The process of insert molding

The process is the same as that of injection molding. The same injection molding machine is used to inject molten raw materials into the plastic mold. The plastic is solidified through the cooling system, and then the press is turned on to eject the molded part. The difference is that before the mold is closed, we need to put the metal into the mold and start all the injection molding process as injection molding. The insert molding uses the same materials as that of the injection molding process, but the metal needs to be added into the mold before closing. For strength, they use the same thermoplastic, the same mold steel, the same mold structure and the same injection molding machine, sometimes due to some special circumstances, vertical injection molding machine is needed, but they are all injection molding thermoplastic. You will view more details about prototype mould.

Some injection molding manufacturers use vertical injection molding machines to help the insert molding process by using gravity to keep the insert in place during mold closing and they should be in place during mold closing. Most vertical insert molding machines have a feature that they use multiple lower half dies together with a single half die. When one bottom half is molded with the cavity half, the other bottom can be loaded with metal and other inert molding parts. Because multiple bottom half parts can place the insert in one bottom half and the other bottom half is in the molding state, the cycle time is shortened. If you have any items that need brass insert molding or any metal insert molding, please send us your request.

2. The technology of Insert moulding

When metal, plastic or ceramic parts need to be embedded with plastic to improve the product structure, we refer to that as insert molding. Insert molding means the part is placed in the mold cavity, and then the selected plastic material is directly injected into it to form a single part, and the insert is encapsulated by the material. Engineering plastics are usually used in insert injection molding process to improve wear resistance, tensile strength and reduce weight. More details would be checked in cnc turned components.The insert injection molding process can be an efficient alternative to assemble discrete parts using welding, connectors, fasteners or adhesives. It also expands plastics capabilities and can reduce the overall cost for products by limiting the amount of expensive metals needed. More importantly, as we can use traditional single injection molding machine for insert molding, the cost of the mold is lower than that of multiple injection molding.