Product Development and Engineering
for Plastic Injection Molding
With five degreed engineers on staff, and decades of experience designing parts and molds for plastic injection molding, Rebling Plastics has the capability to take anything from a napkin sketch to solid models and detailed drawings, and turn around high quality plastic injection molded parts that are designed to optimize cost, weight, manufacturability, ergonomics, and performance. We use both SolidWorks and CADKEY software to bring the design to life, and provide rapid prototyping to confirm that the part is exactly what the customer expects. Throughout the development process, Rebling Plastics will assist and/or lead the way in reverse engineering, design for manufacturing, engineering analysis, rapid prototyping, and mold design. These services are provided free of charge for plastic injection molding customers.
Engineering Case Study:
ATI
Analytical Technology Incorporated (ATI) came to Rebling Plastics for engineering assistance with developing part of a new water pH monitoring product. They wanted to make some changes to one of their existing designs, which meant moving features around to accommodate different electronics. There were some plastic injection molding issues with the current design as well.
ATI provided Rebling Plastics with a sample of the old design and a basic drawing which showed what they were looking to do with the new design. The first step for our team of engineers was to reverse engineer the existing part, while incorporating the changes. There were several mating parts to account for, as well as some brass inserts which would need to be ultrasonically inserted into the part after plastic injection molding.
Using the latest SolidWorks software, the part was modeled in 3D. All the new features were incorporated, and the enclosure was resized to incorporate the new electronics. Ribs, bosses, and coring were changed from the original design to save cost and improve the plastic injection molding process.
After generating the 3D model, Rebling Plastics emailed an eDrawing™ to ATI. EDrawings are 3D models that can be viewed, spun, zoomed, and measured by anyone, even if they have no CAD software. The recipient can easily mark up the eDrawing with comments or suggestions. This tool enables Rebling Plastics to quickly communicate a design change to any customer, regardless of engineering sophistication. Catching a design problem at this stage costs nothing compared to the thousands of dollars in mold modifications later.
After ATI approved the edrawing, Rebling Plastics made a rapid prototype in two days. The prototype was made of glass-filled nylon, which has similar mechanical properties to the actual plastic injection molding material ATI wanted to use. This enabled ATI to put together the whole assembly to see how everything fit together.
Another iteration
No matter how good a design looks on paper (or the computer monitor), there’s no replacement for parts in hand. After assembling the rapid prototype with the redesigned mating parts, ATI discovered they need the enclosure to be a bit bigger. The SolidWorks model was quickly adjusted and approved, another prototype was made and approved, and finally a plastic injection mold could be built.
The SLS prototype that Rebling Plastics provided saved ATI what would have been several thousand dollars in mold modifications.
Another successful production
run
Once the mold was complete, the first production lot was made with a color matched plastic injection molding material. Threaded brass inserts were ultrasonically inserted, and the parts were in spec. With engineering assistance from Rebling Plastics, ATI was able to launch a successful product.
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