A Look Back at the Top Stories of 2019
2019: The Year of The Penguin! We took a look back at all our weekly eNewsletters from 2019 to see which of them were most popular based on how many clicks they received. We knew that our Plastic Performance Penguin was popular last year, but we didn’t realize just how popular until we compared the numbers. It turns out that 2 of the 3 most popular issues were about the penguin! Drum roll, please:
#3: Pumpkin Spice-Flavored Amorphous Plastics?
Back in July, we announced our new penguin-shaped plastic material performance chart. It compares the temperature range, relative cost, and performance characteristics of common crystalline and amorphous plastic resins. (Why penguin-shaped, you ask? Because it’s more fun than a boring old triangle or pyramid).
The response was overwhelming – a lot of people downloaded the penguin chart. So, since we’ve added new people to our mailing list since then (and in case you missed the original), we decided to dress him (or her?) up for Fall in a new download release.
#2: The Plastic Performance Penguin
When you’re choosing the plastic material for your injection molding project, you have literally thousands of materials to choose from.
There are several factors to consider, such as cost, strength and temperature range.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a penguin-shaped chart that helped guide you through a comparison of the most common plastic materials?
Well you’re in luck because our Plastic Performance Penguin (“Triple P” for short) does just that.
Sure, we could have made a boring pyramid- or triangle-shaped chart, but ours is a penguin, which is way more fun!
#1: Part Design Guidelines for the Plastic Injection Molding Process
For design engineers who are new to designing for plastic injection molding, there can be a knowledge gap in making sure the CAD model is properly designed for this manufacturing process.
There are certain, very specific design features that must be considered in the design stage in order to avoid moldability issues that can produce undesirable results in the molded parts. If they’re not considered from the beginning of the design process, and they’re not discovered until the Design For Manufacturability (DFM) review, design changes can add time and cost to an injection molding project.
Draft angle is one example. If a part does not have draft angle designed into it where needed, it may not eject from the mold cleanly and smoothly, and the part will have to be redesigned with proper draft angle.
To help avoid costly and time-consuming design mistakes, we created a plastic injection molding design guide. It provides information on the most important design requirements so they can be incorporated at the initial design stage.
