Motorola Rapid Prototyping Services has its own dedicated staff and facilities for designing, engineering, building, and running injection, compression, and casting molds. We maintain the same capabilities of a production tooling or molding shop, targeted at making single-cavity prototype tools for small to medium-sized parts from Aluminum and Pre-hard Steel.

As with most of our services, our greatest value to our customers is the short cycle time we offer on both tooling and molding. The majority of our tools are constructed as master unit die insert sets that can be run in the appropriate sized MUD frame on any molding press. For very small tools, we use our own custom insert system that minimizes machining tasks, resulting in very short turn-around times. For larger tools, we typically use custom mold sets from one of the major supply houses.

Our four molding presses range from 22 to 200 tons, and are customized for smaller shot sizes. This allows us to produce short runs of parts from prototype tools without the barrel residence-time issues that result from running prototype tools on some production machines. Our customized die frames and adapters also enable us to change molds quickly and easily. All of our presses are also equipped with hot runner controls as well as high performance mold temperature controllers, and each has a dedicated drier bank with up to six independent material hoppers - enabling us to sample multiple materials with very little change-over time.

Our mold designs are created in several CAD programs, including Pro/Mold Design, iDEAS, and Cimatron. Designs are based on our customer's 3-D CAD data with gate and runner recommendations per the material suppliers' recommendations, or established based on Moldflow Simulation. Direct milling of mold cavities and cores is performed on a Makino V33 with a 40-tool changer. Electrode milling is performed on a dedicated Roku-Roku with a 3-R Quad, or on a Makino SNC64 with dual 3-R Quads, giving us the ability to make up to 12 electrodes at a time between the two machines.

Two Fanuc wire EDMs give us significant flexibility in wiring inserts, lifters, gates, and parting lines. We have four die-sinking EDM machines - including machines by Makino and Charmilles that are equipped with both polishing fluid and extensive electrode magazines with robotics. These give us an effective combination of speed and capacity.

We can build anything from simple open and shut tools to complex insert molds and tools with complex motions, gating and ejection. For more complex tools, based on customer needs (speed, cost, quantity requirements) we can produce fully automated, semi-automatic, or manually run tooling. We also do a fair amount of insert molding - over both plastic and metal parts.

Depending on size, complexity, shop loading, and the need for any custom mold components, most of the injection or compression molds we produce are built in anywhere from one to twenty-five working days.

Mold Machining

Steel Milling - max insert size (XYZ) = 28 x 20 x 12 inches (700 x 500 x 300 mm)

Maximum tool capacity = 40 (Makino V33)

 

EDM Process

Maximum Electrode Size (XY) = 6 x 8 inches (152 x 203 mm)

System 3R electrode holders

Primary electrode material = Poco3 Graphite (> 95%)

Electrode Automation = 64 electrodes (Charmilles) , 32 electrodes (Makino)

 

Maximum Mold Size

Crane Capacity = 2 tons (909 Kg)

 

Molding Press Sizes

Husky 180 Ton

Netstal 110 Ton

Arburg 50 Ton

Boy 22 Ton

Complex overmolding tool for a TETRA radio 12 motions (click image to enlarge)

Customer Data Requirements

3-D CAD data in portable format (iges, stl, step, vdi) or in Pro/E, iDEAS, Mastercam or Cimatron

Detailed surface finish specifications

Draft restrictions

Plastic material Selection

Part quantity requirements

We are a very process-oriented business. Our mold manufacturing operation is run by a Six Sigma Black Belt with a eye towards continuously improving materials, processes, and equipment. Our mold design and engineering activities are geared toward choosing the best accelerated path to achieving the customer's requirements.

To keep our mold process fast and flexible, we use a combination of software tools for mold design, electrode design, mold simulation, and mold programming. We also come up with a strategy for each part that we tool based on our plastics knowledge and the customer's complete inputs. This strategy will drive the mold design, build and molding process to achieve the best possible result.

We are able to mold both filled and unfilled thermoplastics, and maintain a sampling inventory of many engineering materials, including nylon, polycarbonate, ABS, and blended materials. We have standing accounts with most major suppliers, and can obtain other materials usually in 1-3 days. We maintain a range of thermoset silicones, and can perform casting, compression molding, of liquid silicone injection molding. Casting and compression molding tools are run on a dedicated Carver vertical press with semi-automatic controls.

Post-molding operations can include de-gating, machining, painting, inserting, sub-assembly or other activities. Parts can also receive special operations at one of our outsourcing suppliers, ranging from plating to pad-printing. Parts can be express shipped to customer or supplier locations worldwide.