Level 7 Plastics Inc. · Jan 2019 – Oct 2021

Hydraulic injection moulder for recycled HDPE

Compact injection moulder driven by a hydraulic press, used with custom steel moulds for product parts.

My role: Adapted the Precious Plastic design; cut every part on the waterjet and fibre laser; assembled the machine and did the electrical with two other engineers.

The injection moulder: vertical aluminium-extrusion frame, red hydraulic bottle jacks, plunger rod and feed funnel above the guarded barrel, and a control box with two temperature controllers.

Highlights

Built a Precious Plastic style injection moulder with a hydraulic press driving the plunger and band heaters on a ~2 inch barrel at about 200 °C; cut every part on a waterjet and fibre laser and did the electrical with two other engineers.

My contribution

I adapted the Precious Plastic injection moulder, cut every part on the waterjet and FabLight fibre laser, assembled the machine, and did the electrical with two other engineers. The custom steel moulds were produced separately.

Technical details

A hydraulic press drives the plunger into a barrel about 2 inches in diameter, band-heated to about 200 °C, injecting HDPE into custom steel moulds.

Lessons learned

The first electrical build failed CSA inspection on non-approved enclosures and components; the machine was re-specified with CSA-approved parts and rewired.

Tools and processes

Materials: HDPE feedstock; steel moulds built from stacked laser-cut sheet
Processes: injection moulding; waterjet cutting; fibre laser cutting; electrical assembly
Tools: hydraulic press (plunger drive); band heaters; waterjet; FabLight fibre laser

Key figures

Barrel diameter	about 2 in
Barrel temperature	about 200 °C

Part of Level 7 Plastics Inc..