In the injection mold business, there are a lot of ways to cut costs. Choosing different thermoplastics or even changing the design slightly can all help to reduce costs through lowering material prices or speeding up the process.
However, when choosing a mold, going with a cheaper product is not always the lowest cost option. In fact, choosing a quality precision aluminum mold plate, even though initially more expensive, may turn out to be the lowest cost option, of them all.
To understand why, here are some considerations for any thermoforming company to consider when choosing the material for their molds.
Precision Mold Construction
One of the advantages in using aluminum mold plate is the precision nature of the plate manufacturing process. This eliminated internal stress in the plate, ensuring it is flat across the surface of the individual plate as well as across all of the plate produced.
With this absolute flat surface and lack of internal stress, machined components in the mold can be constructed to very tight tolerances. In addition, as there is no deformation of the machined or sawed edges, the mold can have the precision corners and shapes required without additional processing needed.
Easy to Work With
The use of aluminum mold plate is also important due to its ability to we welded, hard anodized, polished and machined. It can be used to provide very small and complicated shapes as well as larger simple to complex molds.
It will also resist corrosion, provide top heat conductivity as well as offer the corrosion resistance that makes aluminum a top choice for many applications.
The last reasons to consider it the life cycle of aluminum molds. It is not uncommon for injection molds made of mold plate to last over one million cycles, which reduces the cost of production per unit significantly.
