Plastic Injection Molding Machine

Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!

I'm really excited about this project.  I read an article in Model Engineers Workshop about this but dismissed it because of a lack of detail.  Then I came across the book that the article was based on, Plastic Injection Molding Machine.

This is going to be such a cool project; it has everything!

• Metal cutting and welding to build the frame.
• Precision turning to make the injector mechanism, and the molds.
• High voltages and high temperatures, just to make it a little dangerous.
• A micro controller controlled electronic temperature controller - I can use more of the 8x5x5 LED displays.  And do PID stuff.
• Sheet metal work to make the coverings.

Like most projects, it can be a pain to locate the core components.  In this project it is the cartridge heaters and thermostat controller.  After a bit of internet searching I discovered RS Components carry a range of cartridge heaters.  They also sell industrial thermocouples.  And they also have an affordable (to me) digital temperature controller (~$150), but this is only as a fallback as I plan to build my own, using a thermocouple and a ADS1240 A/D converter.  There is an application note the shows how to read a thermocouple directly using the chip and a microcontroller. 

Cool.  I can't wait.  But I'll have to finish the other projects first.