Tooling for Assembly Molding

The hard tooling model for Assembly Molding is largely the same as the Plastic Molding tooling model (see Tooling for Plastic Molding and Tooling Cost). However, the Assembly Molding tooling calculations are affected by several factors not present in Plastic Molding:

• Assembly Molding parts may require inter-component runners, that is, runners between the molded Subcomponents of a part (if there are multiple molded Subcomponents). See Runner Volume and Runner Area for Assembly Molding.

• Assembly Molding parts may require retention tools, which hold non-molded Subcomponents in place prior to injection. See Insert Retention Cost.

• Assembly Molding parts may require slides or lifters that withdraw retention tools after cooling and prior to the opening of the mold. See Geometric Cost Drivers for Assembly Molding.

• For machines with a shuttle or rotary table (see Machines for Assembly Molding), tooling is assumed to include two mold lower halves and one mold upper half, by default in starting point VPEs. This allows one lower half to be loaded while the other (together with the tool upper half) is injected (see Formulas for Assembly Molding). Administrators can customize the default number of lower tools with the cost model variable defaultNumMoldToolsPerTable. Users can override the default on a per-part basis with the setup option Number of Mold Tools Per Table.

Note that, in the case of a part with multiple molded Subcomponents, the cost model uses the term 'cavity' to refer to the mold cavity for the entire molded portion of the Assembly Molding part, rather than to the cavity for a single molded Subcomponent. So, for example, 'Number of Mold Cavities' refers to the number of top-level Insert Molding parts that are handled by the mold.