Case Story #03: Plastic Product Re-design

Time	2011
Place	Our Factory, Shenzhen, China
Characters	iMoldX and Mr Paul Ellsworth, an engineer from a company in USA.
Synopsis	How we improved a customer's precision plastic product configuration and suceesfully made high quality plastic parts for his company

About precision plastic part production, here is typical story happened between us and one of our customers, Mr Paul
Ellsworth, an engineer from a company in USA.

Mr Paul Ellsworht's company is an American leader manufacturer in Hearing Aid Industry. He asked us to make a very
small enclosure for his hearing aid. The product information is as follows.

1. Product Name: a MINI enclosure.
2. Product Material: GE ABS (GPM4700)
3. Product Gross Dimension: 140 L X 85 W X 45 H mm ( after assembly)
4. Initial order quantity: 20000 pcs.
5. Mold Demand
5.1. to make injection molds with 0.5 million shots lifespan.
5.2. cacity/core No.: 6 X 1

Mr Paul Ellsworth placed the mold order with us soon after we quoted.

The precision details of the enclosure are as follows.

The thinnest plastic wall is 0.1mm, and there are many walls with thickness between 0.1mm and 0.2 mm. This is the greatest challenge of all.

We made moldflow analysis and found the thickness of plastic walls was not even. The main plastic wall is 1.33mm, the thinnest is 0.1 mm, and the thickest is 3.45mm. Therefore, we improved the plastic walls as follows:

After such a plastic wall thickness improvement, we could avoid shrinkage on the enclosure surface and get a better surface. What's more, we also improved some other points of the other plastic parts. After all the problem was solved, we sent the final 3D files to Paul and asked him to confirm. Then we started mold construcion after we got his approval of the final 3D files.

In 45 days, we almost finished the mold building and made the first mold trial before we made texture on the mold.
The six plastic parts that we produced for the first time were 96 % OK after we checked part dimensions and its surface,
except for some little burrs.

We improved the little burrs and made texture that Paul demanded on the mold. Then we made the final samples for him.
In one week he got the samples and made approval of the final samples soon.
He also said he was very satisfied with the final samples we sent to him, and asked us to start the first mass production.