To Be Your Mold Designer and Maker in China
Hot runner mold is a mold with a hot running system. It consists of two plates heated with a manifold system. A hot runner system is a molten plastic conveying unit used within an injection mold.
Elements of a Hot Runner
- Locating Ring
- Inlet
- Manifold
- Nozzles
- Heater Technology
Five-Star Tooling is one of the best manufacturers of the industry’s hot runner mold since 2006. Five-Star designs manufacture and supply high-quality hot runner molds to many areas of the world. To learn more about Five-Star history and other Five-Star details please watch the below Video.
What is hot runner molds?
Injection molding machines can be classified as either cold or hot runner molds, with the latter using heated thermoplastic to inject molten plastic into a mold. When creating products with complex geometries or stringent precision requirements, this molding technique is frequently employed. Plastic components with thin walls or intricate geometries can also be manufactured using hot runner molds.
Hot runner mold can maintain a consistent temperature in the runner. It is usually connected to needle valve nozzles and activated with the precise computer. And it’s often used as multi-cavity molds. It has gates at the best position for economical design.
What is the advantage of hot runner mold?
Hot runner mold has many advantages. It is suitable for big parts. And it can improve production efficiency. It reduces shot volume into runners, which reduces cycle time and help save material cost and production cost.
Hot runner injection mold needs smaller machines and requires lower injection pressure and lower clamping pressure. Besides, it could keep a consistent heat within the cavity and better control volume balancing and timing for accurate reproduction of parts.
What’s more, this mold can achieve automated processing and does not need to cut the sprue manually in our injection molding factory.
Besides that, this mold also has some disadvantages. It’s more expensive and complicated to design and builds. And it has higher maintenance costs and higher initial start-up costs than cold runner molds. It has higher risks of thermal damage.
What is the difference between a hot runner and cold runner molding?
For injection molding, a hot runner mold must be used as it uses heated mold components to maintain the plastic liquid within the mold. By eliminating the need to recycle or re-melt the plastic, this approach reduces the quantity of trash that ends up in landfills.
Whenever a huge volume of identical components must be manufactured quickly or when a higher level of complexity is required, hot runner molds are the tool of choice.
Injection molding systems known as cold runner molds do not use any heating elements to keep the molten plastic contained within the mold. As the name implies, this technique involves injecting the liquid plastic straight in to casting process before letting it cool and harden.
While this setup is less complicated and more cost-effective than a hot runner injection mold, it does result in greater waste because the plastic must be recycled or re-melted. Cold runner molds are quite often utilized for decreased production runs or for simpler products that do not requires appropriate detailing.
A hot runner mold is more complex and expensive than a cold runner mold, but it has the advantage of being more waste-efficient and suitable for high-speed manufacturing of intricate components. A cold runner mold, on the other hand, is less complicated and more affordable, but it generates more scrap and is better suited for less complex components or slower production rates.
Why use hot runner for injection molding?
To get the molten plastic from the machine nozzle to the various mold cavities, hot runner injection molding employs heated, thermally insulated tubes.
By removing the need for ejector and runner systems, this technique helps keep production costs down and boosts product quality. By speeding up the rate at which the cavities are filled with a continuous flow of material, hot runners can significantly cut down on cycle times.
Hot runners also aid in waste reduction because they use considerably less material overall. Moreover, hot runners can manufacture intricate shapes that are not always possible with conventional injection molding.
Hot runner injection molding is advantageous because it reduces expenses, speeds up production, and enhances product quality.
Feel free to contact Five-Star to discuss your hot runner injection molds project.