Yesterday I went to the NPE show to see what's new in the plastic injection molding world as well as a myriad of other plastic related technologies. Saw some pretty neat things while we were there although I wouldn't have called anything "cutting edge" this year. This is now my 4 or 5th NPE show which occurs every three years in Chicago. I went with my son who works for a different plastics company than I do and he brought along one of his floor technicians. We had a great time as this was my sons first trip to NPE. He learned the fine art of freebie hunting at the plastics show. They are always some neat items being molded and if you are on the look out for them, you can take some stuff home with you.
The most common injection molding item we saw being made at the show this year was a process called inlay or in mold decorating. This is a process where you insert a decorated sheet into the mold and inject plastic around the sheet. What comes out of the mold is a finished and fully decorated item. We collected many holographic cups at the show this year which many different injection molding machine makers we doing this year. The usual vendors were present including, Demaag, Cincinnati, Arburg, Husky, Toshiba, Nissei, Boy, and many others.
We grabbed so many cups, cases, flower pots, and other things that we even ended up making two trips to the truck to unload. My favorite cell at the show was a 3.5 second cycle on o a Husky machine which was making 4, 8 oz. Cups at a time, removing them from the mold with stationary robot, and stacking on a conveyor. It's hard to do anything in 3.5 seconds but this was a good example of what can be done these days. The all electric machines made a good showing this year as well and seem to be becoming more and more popular as time goes by and they prove their capabilities. http://www.wm8c.com/custom_injection_molding.htm
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