Fast tools for plastics
A
Toolcraft Plastics product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jul 8, 2002
Tool manufacture took a large part of the critical path to launch EDC's green drain pan pump, designed to empty 14 litres of water per hour from air conditioning equipment through small-bore tubes.
Tool manufacture took a large part of the critical path to launch EDC's green drain pan pump, designed to empty 14 litres of water per hour from air conditioning equipment through small-bore tubes.
Toolcraft Plastics of Swindon was fast to respond when approached by Gerry Hooper, Technical Director at EDC.
The very simple idea of using the water level in the condensate tray to initiate the pump action required the unit to be submersible.
Interactive software played a major part in liaison on design details and early changes were quickly resolved.
The necessary high reliability depended on low-tolerance tooling and choice of compatible plastics for the housing and fill, to achieve a high integrity encapsulation, and colour matching.
Toolcraft chose hard aluminium to reduce tool-manufacturing time and commenced production quantities of mouldings in just a few weeks.
"Nobody wants to wait for tools", says Gerry Hooper, "but John Hemsworth's team quickly integrated with EDC.
We'll certainly use them again".
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