If you're a manufacturer, you know that injection molding is critical to your business. But have you considered using silicone injection molding? It's a crucial step from traditional thermoplastic injection molding and offers several business advantages. This blog post will discuss why choosing the right silicone injection molding company is important for your business. Stay tuned!

Advantages of Using Silicone Injection Molding

Silicone injection molding has a few advantages over the competition. Here are some of them:

Reduced cycle time: Most silicone molded products like keypads can be completed in 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Such rapid production can increase the output compared to compression molding.

Flash-less tooling: Liquid silicone injection molds infuse the silicone after the mold has closed, and the tooling clears little to no flash on the parts thanks to flash rings, vent tracks, and a well-thought-out runner system. This reduces the time required to de-flash and polish the part.

No pre-forms are required for liquid silicone rubber injection molding: A pre-form is a basic finished product shape that is put into each cavity during compression molding. These pre-forms must have an excess of material to ensure a complete cavity fill. The remaining material is pressed between the two molds, resulting in a flash around all the cavities.

It allows placement of pre-molded silicone inserts: Injection molding silicone rubber enables the tool to be fitted with pre-molded clear silicone inserts. Clear silicone inserts are "over-molded" with the desired color, resulting in a flawless bond between the insert and the over-mold. This enables light to be blocked between keys and eradicates the need for the customer to design custom light obstructing components within the PCB.

Clear inserts can also display windows behind the silicone keypad to show components or digital screens. In addition, over-molding silicone inserts creates a cross-linking bond that allows for a leak-proof keypad or component.

There is minimal waste: In silicone injection molding, the only material wasted is within the sprue and runner system leading to the component or keypad, which can be avoided by using a cold runner system. Cold runner systems keep the silicone cool within the runner and sprue, preventing curing. These systems are typically used only on large volume orders where material waste begins to affect the cost.

Silicone injection molding allows manufacturers to create a broad range of precise and near flash less molded silicone parts and over-molded silicone assemblies at increased volumes with tight tolerances.

On the other hand, compared to other rubber molding processes, injection molding has higher startup and shutdown costs. Therefore, it is more suited to high-volume production runs. It is also worth noting that the runner systems in silicone injection molding can increase gross material weight unless it is countered with cold runner systems and other low-waste options.

Conclusion

When it comes to silicone injection molding, you need a company you can trust. Nice Rapid has been in business for over 15 years, and we have the experience and knowledge to help your business succeed. We specialize in small to medium runs, and our turnaround time is one of the shortest in the industry. Contact us today for a free quote on your next project—we would be happy to work with you!