Thursday, February 6, 2014

The Process Of Making Thermoformed Plastic Packaging

By Jerri Perry


The work of a custom thermoforming company is to manufacture high quality products from custom thermoforming. These may include; thermoformed medical devices, plastic panels, custom plastic radomes, and thermoformed plastic enclosures. They are majorly interested in meeting the thermoforming needs of the customers. Thermoformed plastic packaging products are also customized made by such companies and there are a number of steps involved.

Most companies usually use the in-house tooling capabilities to control nearly all aspects of crucial phases of thermoforming business. They can also have aluminum, temperature-controlled molds, trim jigs, and fixtures that are custom made for every project. Usually, these companies have to adopt the basic custom thermoforming process of manufacturing thermoforming products.

The initial step of thermoforming involves assembling flat plastic sheets. The companies usually use different sets of machinery to thermoform various types sheets. Mounted clamps of the sheets are then placed on an oven for heating. This takes a specified amount of time before the sheet is removed and then formed. The hot sheet is then placed over or under the tool used for thermoforming as the tool is moved closer to the sheet.

In the next stage, a seal is made around the cold sheet using pressure or vacuum in order to force it to assume different molding shapes. The next step involves holding the sheet in place until it is cool. Once the cooling process is over, the sheet is detached from the clamp and then trimmed. This may be carried with the aid of different tools. For instance, the sheets can be drilled, cut using a saw, routed, or trimmed using a 3 or 5-axis machine.

The finished parts of the sheets are then cleaned and packed in polybags once the thermoforming process is completed. There are also a number services that can also be offered by these companies. These may include pressure forming, vacuum forming, twin sheet thermoforming, heavy gauge thermoforming, and that of mold making. The vacuum forming, for instance, is majorly used for the production of medical devices.

Pressure forming is a more complex kind of vacuum forming. It bridges the appearance gap through some traditional molding techniques. It is mainly viewed as an old form of thermoforming technique and applied by thin-gage packing industries. In a twin sheet pressure forming, two plastic sheets are heated in order for them to form together. When molding, both sheets are normally preformed into different molds and before they are pressed together.

As the process goes on, a pin is pushed through one of the sheets before air is blown for pressure forming. The pressure and heat then causes the sheets to form one unit. The products made through this process may look similar with those of rotational and blow molding.

Heavy gauge thermoforming can be used for the manufacturing of electronic, medical and industrial products. The process is used to make sturdy rigid enclosures used in equipment such as medical devices, computers, electronic enclosures, radomes, exercise equipment, and outdoor equipment. The products made through this process have a wide range of thickness because it uses machines that can accommodate thicker sheets. If in need of thermoformed plastic packaging then it would be best to approach the custom thermoforming companies in order for you to get exactly what you need.




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