Visit the Maxon Motor UK web site

Guitar application demonstrates moulding technique

A Maxon Motor UK product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 21, 2008

Metal injection moulding will produce very small or complex-shaped components which require little or no machining before use.

Maxon Motor has received an award from the European Powder Metallurgy Association (EPMA) for an automatic guitar tuner that demonstrated the advantages of metal injection moulding (MIM) over conventional production methods.

In MIM, fine metal powder is combined with a plastic binder and the mixture is injected into a mould.

The resulting component is then placed in a furnace, set at about 1300C and "sintered", or heated to a temperature high enough to make the materials bind but not so high as to melt the metal.

The products of MIM can reach 98% of the density of wrought iron and have excellent mechanical properties.

With a dense, nonporous structure and high-quality surface, they can be used in applications where materials need to be gas-tight, resistant to high-pressure and corrosion-free.

They can also be heat-treated, polished, galvanised, welded, soldered and machined with no ill effect.

MIM will produce very small or complex-shaped components which require little or no machining before use.

Undercutting, cross-holing, internal and external screw threads, gear teeth and many other structures can be incorporated within a single component.

Items required in large quantities can be manufactured more economically by MIM than by other methods.

MIM can also reduce costs by allowing a single component with a complex shape to be produced in place of a number of smaller parts that need to be assembled to form the same thing.

In the guitar tuner, for example, Maxon was able to reduce the number of parts needed from 150 to 30.

Find out more about this article. Request a brochure, download technical specifications and request samples here.

Not what you're looking for? Search the site.

Back to top Back to top

Contact Maxon Motor UK

Tel +44 118 973 3337

Other Maxon Motor UK stories

Newsletter sign up

Request your free weekly copy of the Engineeringtalk email newsletter ...

Visit the Maxon Motor UK web site

Browse by category

All suppliers A - Z

A Pro-talk Publication

A Pro-talk publication