Static Control in Plastic Moulding Collection
The plastic industry struggles heavily with the build-up of uncontrolled static. The inherent build-up of static is an inseparable part of many processes in plastic manufacturing, including plastic moulding.
Implementing efficient static control at this crucial stage of production has become a necessity in the plastics sector, not only to protect your product but your staff as well.
Static Build-up
One contributing factor for the static build up in plastics moulding is the accumulation of static at previous stages.
Static is generated at an incredible rate during the injection moulding process. Therefore, the plastic pellets passing through the hopper need to have their static controlled to prevent them from sticking and jamming the machine.
The plastic released from the mould itself can attract a lot of static if not appropriately controlled; this has already created a lot of potential for ESD before we’ve even reached the plastic moulding process.
These small plastic parts from the injection moulding all collect in a vast collection bin at the end of this process. Unfortunately, this bin will attract a lot of erratic static and dust that will cause these pieces to stick together and clog the machine, similar to the earlier parts of injection moulding. Appropriately placed ESD solutions can remedy all these problems.
Static Problems In Mouldings
When mouldings have been trimmed and machined, the static may attract airborne contaminants that will ruin the quality of your product. This will need cleaning off before any of your newly moulded pieces are packaged or incorporated into other products.
The pressure and heat from the vacuum-forming process can create a statically charged environment that encourages two objects to remain stuck together. Therefore, a smooth flow for any vacuum forming process is essential to maintaining productivity in your manufacturing process.
Additional to the issues uncontrolled static can have on your processes, ESD is a risk to yourself and your employees as continually generated static will lead to harmful ESD randomly discharging.
Anti–Static Solutions
Whilst static is a helpful addition to several processes, uncontrolled static is a hazard in any part of plastics manufacture and should be controlled with effective anti static equipment.
At Ioniser-pro, we have a wide range of various solutions to ESD. For static control in plastics moulding collection, we recommend placing either our Ioniser-Pro Blow or Ioniser-Pro Blow F units at the collection point.
These are both direct current ionising blower units (or DC). The benefits you gain with these is they can clean the air cost-effectively and more efficiently from the harmful static by using positive and negative power supplies simultaneously.
The Ioniser-Pro Blow is equipped with two-speed twin fans that can efficiently spread static, eliminating ions instantly.
The Ioniser-Pro Blow F has the same features as the Ioniser-Pro Blow, but this unit comes with an additional fine particulate filter. This upgraded filter can clean microscopic dust and pollen from the air and neutralise any static.
If you would like to know about any of our ESD solutions or protective choices, please don’t hesitate to contact us today, and a member of our team will be happy to assist you.
