Top 10 Product Categories for Medical Molds
Designing molds for the medical sector requires unique approaches, and Progressive Components—headquartered in the Northern Illinois medical corridor—has exclusive items that cannot be found from anyone else.
Following is our Top 10 list of items that are designed to provide maximum performance and longevity of your critical medical tools
1. tapered date stamps
Our Tapered Series Daters feature a shut-off surface to prevent flash and seizing, even when running high MFI resins such as LSR, Nylon, and Medical-grade flex PVC. All Stainless Steel construction, this patented design has no height variation during rotation.
2. puller pins and bushings
Many tools either have 3-plate gating or are a “hot-to-cold” drop hybrid. For this, Progressive offers Puller Pins™ available off-the-shelf at nominal lengths to match standard plate thicknesses. Unlike how pins are typically finished in-house, Puller Pins are ion nitrided after the undercut geometry is finished and polished, resulting in a wear-resistant, ‘sealed’ surface. Then, rather than having pins riding against non-hardened mold plates, hardened Stainless Steel Puller Pin Bushings prevent wear and the resulting particulate.
3. stainless steel support pillars
Every medical mold has them, but only Progressive has off-the-shelf Stainless Steel Support Pillars, which, along with corrosion resistance, are two and a half times harder than others’ 200 Brinell 1040 material.
4. medical mold base components
Greaseless for medical (and durable enough for die casters), Progressive offers off-the-shelf Black Nitride Leader Pins, Bushings, and Guided Ejector Bushings. Also, corrosion-resistant black oxide treated Locating Rings, Guided Support Pillars for small molds where space is tight, and PKO Extensions now available in longer standard lengths for insulator sheets on bottom clamp plates.
5. THROUGH-HARDENED EJECTION COMPONENTS
Black Nitride Ejector Pins are available in-stock, as well as lubricious thin chromium-plated UltraPins. Core Pins and Sleeves can quickly be treated as needed, and cut-to-length for $2.00 and keyed for $2.00 per pin.
6. smooth running slide retention
Instead of constant greasing required to prevent metal-to-metal wear under slides, SRT Slide Retainers with hardened 80 HRC TiN coated roller can run clean and dry, and now easier to install within the new hardened D-2 SRT Bushing.
7. EXCLUSIVE "BLACK AND GOLD" MECHANISMS
The combination of Titanium Nitride (TiN) and Black Nitride (SBN) has been independently tested and proven to outperform not only look-alike imitations but also DLC vs. DLC. The same technology proven for withstanding the “bump” of aligning mold halves due to platen sag has been applied in standard CamActions, as well the lubrication-free pairing up of UniLifter U-Couplings and T-Gibs.
8. UNMATCHED ALIGNMENT LONGEVITY
Progressive’s Alignment Lock product line covers a range of applications, as cavities and cores for medical molds often require insert-to-insert alignment, and at times mold bases can be quite large and contain floating plates. Beginning with Cavity Interlocks (Round and Flat) and Internal Top Locks, alignment is also provided for molds as large as 75,000 lbs with our Inserted Bar Locks. For multiple parting lines, Bar Locks are machined from the mold’s side, or if preferred, Top Machined Bar Locks are available, as well as X-Style Bar Locks with offset center bolt locations for floating plates.
9. cooling is key
Mold designers are constantly fighting to get water where needed, and Progressive has more exclusive and patented ways of delivering cooling than anyone. High-Flow Surgical Stainless Steel Tubes are an advantage over past standards of thick-walled brass tubes and are available in several mounting styles to suit your application.
Also, we have Threadless Plugs for those who specify no tapping or introduction of stresses in their 420SS inserts, and Jumper Baffles and Reverse Flow Baffles provide an easy to drill, easy to maintain waterline. Last, at the design stage, think safety downstream and include Keyed Connectors and keyed sockets to prevent setup personnel incorrectly attaching cooling lines and hot oil circuits, and call out locking socket connectors for safety to be assured.
10. Monitor and Maintain Medical Molds
Along with the Components listed above, an additional factor for Medical molds is that they often have heightened maintenance requirements.
Progressive’s CVe Monitors provide real-time data, and ProFile® brings secure remote access for managing user-defined maintenance intervals for molds, machines, and equipment. System Cooling allows injection molders to collect and view data on cooling lines and parameters during production.
Every mold is different, and we hope that out of this Top 10 list, there will be some new advantages identified for your company.
Have an immediate need or question? We’re here to help. Please give us a call at 1-800-269-6653 or send a note to tech@procomps.com for a discussion or click the link below to setup a webinar for you and your colleagues.