MarkIngle Posted March 7 Report Share Posted March 7 Hello! I am new to the forum and new to injection/pouring in general. I am curious if anyone has experience using molds from a 3D printer. Its taken almost 8 months but I finally have a Mullet mold that is the exact image of a finger mullet. Its an injection mold. My pours are good about 90% of the time (air pockets). Ill post some pictures if anyone is interested. Recently I started designing and testing pours for a "Paul Brown" like mold for seatrout. Getting the proper design is kicking my butt! I cannot get a good pour. The mold print takes about 12 hours and I have 7 molds at this point. Each pour has air bubbles or dents at the vents. I have tried different temps from 340 - 370 (Lureworks). Is there something I am missing? Seems like I have read that molds need to be heated? Any help would be much appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hand Crafted Angling Posted March 7 Report Share Posted March 7 Some pictures along with some dimensions of venting etc would help. What type of printer are you using. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkIngle Posted March 7 Author Report Share Posted March 7 (edited) The vents are hard to see but they are .24mm high and 3mm wide at this point. Just one side of the mold. My layer height is .12 This is the mold in the upper right of the pic but its not the most current....the recent one was just poured has a different injection hole location. I will post a pic later. Others are designs that failed I have a Prusa i just poured after using my reflow hot air to heat the inside of the cavity. On the zoomed in pic last night I purposely stopped short of the plastic exiting the vent to see what was going on. To me it revealed the plastic is creeping up the wall cavity and getting ahead of the level plastic rising up. I’m guessing the cooler wall is causing this? I’m testing to see if there is a difference with the cavity walls heated to around 300. Essentially with a cold mold the vents are not able to do their job cause they are sealed up by the creeping plastic. Hope this makes sense. Edited March 7 by MarkIngle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hand Crafted Angling Posted March 7 Report Share Posted March 7 Those vents should deffinitly be big enough. If you wanted to you could run an extra one straight out the back. The runner from the sprew to the bait does look pretty narrow. I would try and make that wider and shorter. Other than that make sure you are not getting any bubbles inside your injector. That caused a lot of problems for me. You can try injecting it slower and holding pressure on it after it fills so it has pressure while solidifying Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkIngle Posted March 7 Author Report Share Posted March 7 Pre-heating made a HUGE difference! There are a few small internal bubbles but I believe your suggestions will eliminate them. I am gonna do a few more to see if I can be consistent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkIngle Posted March 8 Author Report Share Posted March 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
