Custom moulding facility saves mould maintenance costs and reduces its scrap rate using Lusin® MC1718 mould cleaner to remove build-up issues Chem-Trend, a global leader in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of high-performance release agents, purging compounds, and mould maintenance products, is proud to propose a mould cleaner solution that combines excellent cleaning performance, simplicity of use and improved part quality. During processing a fraction of polymer, additives as well as pigments slowly deposit on mould cavities. With time, it forms build up that incrementally affect the parts surface quality generating rejects. Building up of residues is a very slow and steady effect. Just a few defect parts could potentially affect a complete batch. Either this batch is supplied to customers and may weaken supplier’s rating if defects are detected or the batch needs to be sorted to remove parts with visual defects, which increases production cost. Some polymers, additives and pigments are more likely to deposit during long production cycles. Polyamide, PVC,
To avoid part rejection, regular
allowed. The surface texture of this large
Acetals as well as many others do
maintenance cycles should be
mould was very sensitive. The cleaning
accumulate. Polyolefins leave wax as well
implemented. Maintenance cycle length
method was restricted to cleaning
as entrapped pigments on cavity surfaces.
vary a lot pending on the mould’s
of the cavities in the tool room. Each
complexity.
refurbishment cost was estimated to 3
The effects of build up are multiple and
k€ and two days of work. Due to heavy
some are difficult to track:
PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE
depositing on the mould, a refurbishment
• Knit lines, voids, blemishes are simple
A custom moulder, producing a 1.6 kg part
was necessary every two weeks.
to check. It could be done directly on the
from flame-retarded PC+ABS was facing
machine.
critical part aspect issues (see picture 1).
In the middle of the production run,
• Partially clogged venting (e.g. vented
The long cycle time of 55 seconds also
at the end of the semi-manual cycle,
pins) could be a bit more difficult to
added to the importance of producing
an initial trial was made by spraying
detect when it affects cavity filling for
perfect visual parts. Important care was
Lusin® MC1718 directly on the moving
example.
given to the handling of the mould, a
part of the mould (visual half). After
• Textured surfaces (e.g. matt dashboard
simple touch with hands could potentially
approximately 30 seconds of reaction
part) affected by incremental surface
lead to extensive polishing of the tool. No
time, the machine started in semi-
gloss are not easy to spot.
abrasive nor manual cleaning method was
automatic mode again.
30 FDPP - www.fdpp.co.uk