Plastic Injection Molding and CNC Machining in Plastic production

When it comes to the production of plastic injection, computers and machines play major roles to boost uniformity and quality of these sterile products. This process of involving computers and machines in the manufacturing process to handle specific tasks is known as CNC Machining or Computer Numerical Control.

So if you are considering moving into large scale production of plastics, it is very imperative that the difference between injection molding and CNC machining is well understood. Once this is done, it becomes very easy to know which method is applicable, cheap and more profitable for your company.

Initial Design

Whether it is plastic Injection molding or CNC machining when a product is about to be designed a similar process is adopted. In both instances, the prototype of the product is given to a plastic manufacturing company, the company has its representatives examines the initial design of the product and looks out for faults and make the needed adjustments where they deem fit.

After this, the company is expected to redesign the product in a 3-D format using the Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. The three-dimensional design of the product enables both the real manufacturer and the plastic production company have a better insight into what each part of the finished product looks like.

Production

It is in the production of the product that the CNC machining begins to differ from plastic injection molding. Here lies the difference, in the former, the first thing that is produced in the mold, the molten plastic is then injected into the mold, after which it is allowed to cool and the mold is removed for production to continue.

However, For CNC machining, the design or prototype of the product is first encoded into the machine, the machine itself is fed with plastic blocks. The machine does the cutting of the mold to produce a product in line with the design that has been saved in it.  Both methods that are the CNC machining and the Plastic injection molding can be used to manufacture the same products, products that look alike in almost all ramifications. The differences will lie in the little details, the smoothness of the edges as well as the shapes.

In summary, you have more waste to handle if you adopt the CNC machining than the plastic injection. on the other hand, with the plastic injection mold, a little amount of time is being spent in setting up the initial mold of the injection, however, once it is completed, you have no need to bother about wastes as zero waste is generated.

This is because the raw materials used in the plastic injection is in a liquid form unlike that CNC machining a large amount of the raw material is in the solid state that is cut away contributing to the waste deposit. The remnants are melted or used to form another block making the production process to be expensive.