best practices

Sheet Extrusion

Extrusion: Important Polymer Melting Equations for Extrusion Processors

The more you know about what happens in a screw, the more you’ll be able to work with your supplier to optimize design.

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Packaging

Award-Winning Package Boosts Lindar's Thermoforming Credentials

Custom thermoformer Lindar has experienced years of steady growth, with numerous technical advances to its credit, as it continues to expand its capabilities in packaging and industrial markets. 

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best practices

Be Proactive in Your Purging Program

True, it can be tough to take a machine out of production, but a purging maintenance program should be thought of as a direct line to cost savings.

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Materials

Materials Part 1: What Annealing Can Do for Your Process

Relatively rapid cooling rates in processing introduce internal stress. If functional problems in use result, annealing may draw down the stress to levels that may not be achievable during processing.

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Don’t Get Caught in the Flash-and-Shorts Chase

Injection molding’s most common defects can have inverse correlation, where correcting one causes the other, leading to the “chase.”

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Follow These Tips to Sanitize Machine Controller Screens & Buttons

Keeping your workers safe from the coronavirus makes it extremely important to institute a sanitizing procedure on all touch surfaces of the controller, screen and operating panel. I did some research and here’s what I found.

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Part 1: How to Properly Size Gates, Runners and Sprues

Get the sprue, runner and gate sizes close to ideal the first time around—without spending a lot of time on extremely complicated formulas.

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Extrusion

Try This Lower-Cost Purging Method

You might be able to reduce purging times and save money by scheduling processing jobs in order of the increasing material viscosity. But to get started, you'll need shear rate/viscosity curves for your polymers.

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SPE Schedules First-Ever 'Virtual' ANTEC

Attendees can listen to keynotes and presentations live. Many presentations will also be recorded.

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How to Optimize Usage of Recycled Material

Processors need to “engineer” feeding properties similar to virgin pellets into their regrind to efficiently and economically utilize more of their scrap.

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Process Cooling