Customer Spotlight: Sinicon Plastics- Dalton, MA

Sinicon Plastics was founded by Tony Sinico. A child of the Great Depression and first generation Italian-American, Tony was no stranger to hard work and dedication. Due to the circumstances at the time, Tony left school in the eighth grade to support his family by working on their dairy farm in Stockbridge Massachusetts.

In 1968, Tony had a young family of his own to support, and decided to start Sinicon Plastics, a true family business. He, and eventually his son Tony Jr, worked tirelessly to build Sinicon from the ground up, much like the dairy farm many years ago.

After 21 years  of work, Tony decided it was time to sell Sinicon Plastics. in 1989, our current owner, David Allen, purchased Sinicon from Tony and his son. It was clear from the start that the Sinicos and David were a terrific match. Much like Tony in 1968, David had a young family of his own to support and was no stranger to hard work. As testimony to the chemistry between the two, David noted that “Tony continued to work for me for 23 years, becoming my most hardworking, dedicated employee and mentor until he retired at the age of 91.”

When David bought the company there were seven employees and eight machines located in an old, 5,000 sq ft textile mill. Since then the company has evolved into a leading manufacturer of highly technical plastic and silicone parts. Among their clients, one of the largest is the Seimens Group.

Today, you will find the same work ethic and dedication to quality in everything Sinicon Plastics does.

David Allen, President and CEO of Sinicon Plastics has a vision for the future and you can easily see where that vision is leading the company.

Sinicon Plastics is in the process of revitalizing their infrastructure with renovations and new modern equipment.

“Sinicon offers a wide variety of products and services for medical, military, aerospace and industrial applications. Products and services include micro molding, insert/over molding, gears, seals, cages, silicone, assembly, welding and much more. At Sinicon, we mold over 700 different part numbers.”

Sinicon’s equipment list is quite extensive and they are well positioned to deliver top-quality parts.

You can view a complete list of Sinicon’s equipment here.

Shadow Polymer is proud to count Sinicon Plastics among our esteemed clients. Over the years we have helped Sinicon Plastics with projects both large and very, very small (their specialty is small parts).

Shadow Polymer has provided crucial tools to help Sinicon Plastics achieve their goals. We have been able to utilize our experience to suggest changes to gating, materials, cooling, etc. to help reduce costs and prevent mistakes before they happen.

Sinicon Plastics has found that Shadow Polymer analysis helps them perform at an entirely higher level. Their projects are designed to have all of the analysis and simulation answers perfected before a mold is in process. Sinicon has found that while working with Shadow Polymer, there is no trial and error. There is just expected performance.

One final point:
“What we’ve found is a very good solution working with Shadow Polymer. We’re not a huge company, but we can compete on that level with Shadow Polymer’s help. We finds Shadow’s experience to be the right fit that brings the expertise needed with every project. Shadow Polymer is definitely a boost in confidence.”
– Carl Olson, VP Sales & Marketing, Sinicon Plastics

Enhancing the Part Strength of a Hammer Tacker with Carbon-Fiber Orientation Stress Analysis

Case Study

In order to strike the right balance of lightweighting without compromising structural integrity, it is important to take into account the effects of fiber orientations and material properties in structural FEA analysis.

Stanley Black & Decker (Stanley) engineers utilized both Moldex3D and Altair Radioss in order to investigate the part strength of a hammer tacker housing (Fig. 1). The product was made from 30% carbon fiber-filled PA66, and it was expected to pass the 300,000 life test. With the integration of Moldex3D and Altair Radioss, Stanley engineers can gain insight into how the strength of the part would be influenced by the fiber orientation to ensure part strength.

Stanley engineers used Moldex3D to obtain injection molding simulation results as well as fiber orientation data. Based on the simulation results, Stanley engineers could evaluate gate locations and make sure that the sprue pressure, air trap, and warpage would meet requirements (Fig. 3). Stanley engineers then used Moldex3D FEA Interface to export fiber-induced anisotropic mechanical properties for further structural analysis.

Read The Full Article Here >>

First-ever Experimental Verification of WAIM Push-back Process Simulation

From Moldex3D

Fluid-assisted injection molding (FAIM) process applies a technique to let assisted fluid enter after plastic injection molding and form a hollow structure inside products. FAIM can produce hollow parts with good dimension control that conventional injection and blow molding cannot achieve. Also, unlike traditional injection molding, the fluid can hold pressure from the inner part for better pressure distribution across thickness and therefore can produce better surface finishes, reduce shrinkage and residual stress and achieve higher dimensional accuracy. As such, the technique of FAIM keeps getting promoted with lots of new patents of process methodology all over the world [i, ii, iii].

According to the amount of plastic melt injected into the cavity, we can categorize the FAIM process generally into two types:

  1. Short-shot method: In this early developed FAIM application, the amount of the injected plastic is less than the cavity space and rely on fluid to press and full fill the cavity. This method is very suitable for rod shape or large size hollow products, and the hollow rate is normally lower than 35%.
  2. Full-shot method: With injecting the full amount of resin into the cavity space, assisted fluid then only supports to pack more material for shrinkage during the cooling stage and collaborates with different techniques (to be discussed later) for better core-out control. Thus, it allows a wider range of hollow rate, and can effectively improve sink mark and warpage issues for thin-plate shaped product.

Full-shot FAIM process is a more favored technique among manufacturers since the short-shot method is more likely to cause defects like hesitation flow marks. For example, push-back is a common technique of water-assisted injection molding (WAIM) (shown in Fig. 1). In this molding method, the entrances for plastic melt and for water are at two different sides of the cavity, and water is injected after the cavity is fully filled to push the plastic melt back into the injection unit. With this technique, it can not only eliminate the flow mark issue in the short-shot method but also reduce material waste by reusing the resin that flows back to the injection unit and taking overflow out from the cavity. However, this technique requires a special design of the nozzle to prevent the melt from flowing back during the filling stage. Also, the melt and fluid entrances at the two sides must be considered in the product design.

Read The Full Story Here >>

Joint Moldex3D / Shadow Polymer Webinar With Robert Hickman

Register Now: Webinar on August 21, 2019

How do you corroborate your simulation results? Join the Moldex3D webinar with our partner, Shadow Polymer Industries, to learn the use of advanced Moldex3D simulation techniques to closely correlate simulation results with molded reality.

Reserve your seat now: https://lnkd.in/f5nicA6

Moldex3D Northern America

2:30 PM EDT | Wednesday, August 21, 2019 | Check Your Time

The webinar will demonstrate how with experience and the use of advanced Moldex3D simulation techniques, we were able to closely correlate simulation results with molded reality in collaboration with our customer (Sinicon Plastics – Pittsfield, MA). The part to be used for discussion is a high precision, glass filled medical component.

What you will learn:

  • Moldex3D tools and technology can assist with manufacturing studies.
  • The importance of experience in molding when simulating.
  • Basic strategies for running advanced simulation and how they can affect results.
  • The acceptance of Moldex3D in the molding sector of plastics manufacturing.

This webinar is co-hosted by

   

 

 

Join Robert Hickman, President of Shadow Polymer Industries, Inc. at Moldex3D Users’ Meeting

Join Robert Hickman, President of Shadow Polymer Industries, Inc. at Moldex3D Users’ Meeting North America!

Presentation:

The Use of Moldex3D to Corroborate Advanced Simulation Results with Custom Injection Molding of a High Precision, Glass Filled Medical Component

Want to hear his presentation?

Register at: https://lnkd.in/fzMADqk

📅 April 25-26, 2019

📍 The Inn at St. John’s, Plymouth, MI

Presentation: The Use of Moldex3D to Corroborate Advanced Simulation Results with Custom Injection Molding of a High Precision, Glass Filled Medical Component

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