Feature Articles - Motorola

Motorola maintains high-Quality parts with Innovative Mold Evacuation System.

At Motorola’s iDEN product division, Principal Staff Engineer, Mark Bresin, has been using a method to generate negative pressure within the tool cavity to eliminate surface imperfections and to improve their filling profile for their injected molded telecommunications products. Bresin has applied this system since 1992 and has virtually eliminated surface imperfections, part burns, voids and flashing on various applications including “high Speed Fill/ Thinwall” part designs.

His success is due to a system from CAE Services Corporation, Batavia, IL. Developed for injection molders, the Mold-Vac is designed to draw vacuum and evacuate entrapped air and gas thus improving part quality. Bresin was so impressed with the results that he has been specifying CAE’s Mold-Vac system ever since.

100% of the iDEN division’s tools are fitted for the Mold-Vac system. That’s hundreds of tools worldwide at dozens of molders that are experiencing the benefits of Mold-Vac. “I won’t use a molder that is not equipped with Mold-Vac.

Many molders don’t fully understand the benefits, but I’ve made believers out of all the molders I’ve worked with,” says Bresin. For Motorola, the primary benefit is improved part quality. For the molders, productivity is increased, reject rates are decreased, and they’re able to achieve a higher profit margin.

According to Bresin, the difference in part quality is immediately noticeable upon the installation of the Mold-Vac system. “I was working with a molder overseas who was struggling to produce a quality part. I reviewed their samples and recognized the problem immediately as a gas trapping issue. The next day we installed a Mold-Vac on their machine and everything was running beautifully – the parts were perfect. They couldn’t believe the change, but I’ve seen it many, many times.”

CAE’s industry leading 2,000 and 4,000 molded evacuation systems have been helping molders reduce part defects and increase productivity for over 15 years. The most recent addition to the series, the Mold-Vac 10,000, is the fastest evacuation system on the market today. With an air/gas evacuation rate of .02 seconds per cubic inch, it has been specifically tailored for use with molds that require fast fill times, large parts and /or high cavitation.

Another benefit to the Mold-Vac system is a reduction of mold maintenance. Mold-Vac’s unique blowback control feature ensures that vented pins are cleaned and purged after every cycle. “Our molders have experienced 10-times fewer cleanouts. By slowing buildup of residue on the tool, Mold-Vac enables them to save both time and money on maintenance,” says Bresin.

To begin using Mold-Vac, a slight modification to the mold is required. Bresin specifies a parting line evacuation because he has found it to be the simplest method. Because Motorola has the quick-disconnect fitting for the Mold-Vac built into the initial tool design, the cost to modify the mold is minimal, less than $500.

For Bresin, using the Mold-vac has eliminated hours of frustrating trial and error to produce a high-quality part. The minimal investment has been more than worth it.