I got the machine to ooze out a blob of plastic, but in order to make any more progress on this machine I need to have a mold! Luckily, a nice guy I met in LA gave me an old mold he had laying around (I don't remember where he said he got it). This type of mold can't be used "as is" because it is a Master Unit Die or "MUD" mold. These molds need a frame to hold them in place. Several companies make frames and molds like this but they are kinda pricy (at least for a hobbyist like me).
I measured this mold and found that it fits the 8490 size mold frame. I then got the dimensions from a few of the people selling them and designed my own. Mine was basically the same but I made a few adjustments so it would fit my machine and such.
DME CAD Library
http://www.crosstool.com
http://www.seasky-tooling.com
Here is a lot of steel I got from Speedy metals. With shipping it was $309 which is much less than the $3000+ I saw these going for. The picture on the right is just the metal rough cut.
DME CAD Library
http://www.crosstool.com
http://www.seasky-tooling.com
Here is a lot of steel I got from Speedy metals. With shipping it was $309 which is much less than the $3000+ I saw these going for. The picture on the right is just the metal rough cut.
After I got it all machined, I found that the mold didn't fit the minimum mold height of 8.5" so I made a 1" spacer. Here it is all bolted in the machine. There is still a little drilling and tapping to do but I couldn't help bolting it in and testing it.
Here is the first part to come out! The material was wrong for the part so it flashed out and stuck in the mold but this is a big improvement from the big blob you saw last time.
Next up: I will talk more about the control sequence I am working on.
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