Shini Automation in Metal Injection Molding (MIM)

Under the trend of pursuing higher speed and innovation, how to quickly and precisely convert the design into practically functional product and enable mass production is always the ultimate goal for manufacturing industries. Metal injection molding (MIM) as known as “the hottest process of mechanical part production” becomes the spot today. MIM produces precise, high strength, and sophisticated components in short time through material injection molding and sintering. Also, MIM can produce multiple sophisticated components in one time, avoid complicated machining processes and form the product evenly in mold under the liquid state. Due to the even pressure in the mold, the product has uniform density, even structure, and ideal mechanical strength. To conclude, comparing to traditional process, MIM has the advantages of precise and even structure, excellent properties, and low costing.

Although the traditional machining process has improved by automatic producing system, the basic process is still step by step (turning, milling, grinding, drilling, polishing...). Also by considering the high material wastage rate of traditional machining process and the machining limits for some product shapes due to limited ability of cutting tool and machining equipment, MIM becomes the optimal way to produce some mass production products with small sizes, sophisticated shapes, and have other special requirements

An electronics company, located in Guangdong province and is one of the globally renowned OEM/ODM providers, purchased 12 sets of ST3 robots from SHINI and used them for taking out their MIM products from injection mold machines, removing the runners with extremely precise criteria, and palletizing them this year. The efficiency enhanced, quality improved and manpower saved have resulted in high satisfaction from the customer after they choose SHINI.

In this case, with servo flipping axis added to the end of the arm, the robot completed with high precision a series of movements: picking - precise runner removing – palletizing. Without a doubt, the usage of the robot arm improves the efficiency of production in whole factory. On the other hand, the combination of MIM and robot arm has further achieved the goal of automatic production and has reduced the risk factors in every aspect.

Shini ST3 robots have single-arm and double-arm; single-stage arm and telescopic-arm for selection. They are suitable for 2-plate/3-plate mold and hot-runner system, capable of aligning, stacking, quality checking, insert-molding and other applications. They can be used for injection molding machines under 3600T clamp force.