Robotic machining of hard steel injection and resin thermoforming moulds and dies

Nisaform is active in design and production of moulds for all the kinds of plastic moulding technologies. Two industrial parts have been selected to test robot machining: - a component of an Injection Mould for producing plastic razors, in hard steel - a component of a Thermoforming Mould for producing a Food Bowl, in resin. Injection Moulds represent the most important typology of industrial moulds in term of production volume. The Food Bowl Mould part was chosen to test COMET approach on machining softer materials typical of thermoforming moulds, which is another important sector in moulding industry. As regarding Robot machining cost estimation: even if equipment costs decrease with robot, cutting times in general increase, and the resulting process cost is more or less competitive to the CNC reference in relation to how longer the process is. With increasing the work envelope, the robot becomes more and more competitive as the equipment cost for the CNC increases significantly while the robot’s one stays unchanged.