How to get affordable moulded parts without the tooling costs blowing the budget for your project.
Part Design <=>Tool Design
Understanding the way the tool functions and is made will help you adapt your part design to make the most of the part you want at a lower tooling cost. We can help you design parts which give you the functionality that you need while at the same time reducing the tooling costs. AAV Plastics offer this advice as part of their service. This may take a bit longer at the start of development, but will save time and money over the course of the project and help us make your parts at competitive prices. As a business we are keen to get your part designed, tooled and into production.
Aluminium Tooling
AAV Plastics have become increasingly confident and successful in using tooling grade 7000 series aluminium for injection mould tools, even for high volume or glass filled parts (but in reality not high volume glass filled parts). 7000 aluminium is harder than 6000 series and more resilient than many P20 steels. The ease of machining means that many features such as deep webs, complex surfaces and shut outs can be milled directly into the tool rather than having to be made by machining electrodes and then spark eroding multiple times into the tool.
We have successfully run over 600,000 shots from one tool. This tool was made in Fortal 7000 series aluminium.- see below:-
Modular Tooling
AAV can offer modular tooling. When making tooling for new projects or low volume requirements the some parts of the tool, such as clamp plates and parallels are shared with other tools, so reducing the tooling cost. There is a small increase in the set up cost each time a tool is run as the tool has to be reassembled, but for low volume/ infrequent use this is much less than the cost saving in the tool. In the unlikely event that the tool is required to be moved you own the plates made for the job, and can order replacement clamp plates and parallels. This is not like some moulders’ “part” tooling where the tool cost is part paid for by the moulder, and the customer has to pay a large fee to release the tooling.
We also use this system in partnership with our suppliers abroad, and the reduction in weight when we only ship the actual mould plates helps reduce the airfreight cost and environmental cost.