DitaiPlastic Vacuum Forming

Dongguan Ditaiplastic factory now is a totally one-stop factory. From raw material making to mold making to vacuum forming to CNC to painting to silk-screen to quality testing to polish to packaging. It all has a related department now.

  Following are the detail machines details.

• 2 sets of raw material machines ( can produce the raw material thickness from 0.5mm to 12mm)
• 2 sets of mold-making machines
• 16 sets of vacuum forming machines ( the biggest product size we can produce is 4m x 2m x 1m)
• 28 sets of CNC machines ( 13 sets of flat CNC machines and 15 sets of 5-axis machines all have here)
• Etc…

Therefore, I would like to share with you some things which you should pay attention to if choose to use vacuum-forming technology for producing your products.

For the raw material making:

  The raw materials quality is the most important thing in vacuum forming. Only we make sure the quality of the material is good at the beginning, then we can make sure the product’s quality next can be controlled. In other words, if the material’s quality has a problem, no matter how you do the improvement at rest production steps. The final product will still look bad.

  According to this, you will need to make sure you can get the raw material’s certificates from the raw supplier to make sure the raw material’s grain which will be used for production are meet your requests. Also, please double-check with your supplier how much recycled material they will use for production. Usually, 30% recycled material in the raw material sheet production is no problem and will not influence the quality of the goods. But if the factory adds more recycled material, quality will be an influence.

  In other words, if you need a high-quality product, you also can ask the raw material supplier to use 100% pure raw material grain for production.

  Or if you do not have many requests for the vacuum forming products you are going to make and also wanna save the cost of your product. You can ask your supplier to use more recycled material for making your raw material sheets like 50% or 60%, this will save the cost at the beginning. Relatively, your product’s price will be cheaper.

  Now back to DITAI company, as we mentioned, now we have 2 sets of raw material-making machines now. So we can control the raw material’s quality by ourselves. Even if your product has problems after production, DITAI also can move very quickly and arrange a new raw material production for you. And now DITAI has stock over 300 tons of raw material grain in stock. This will avoid the CITY is lockdown down because of the COVID 2019. DITAI can still keep working interior.

The followings are the raw material machines in DITAI:

For the vacuum forming mold production:

There are four types of molds that can be used for vacuum-forming technology. Followings are the details:

• Wood vacuum forming mold: The mold cost is cheaper than aluminum mold, but such kind of mold is usually for the customer for just producing the samples during production. As after 20-30 times vacuum forming, the mold will break. Therefore such kind of mold is outdated. But it did happen in the vacuum-forming technology before.
• Fiber glass vacuum forming mold: For such kind of mold, the cost is also cheaper than aluminum mold, but compared with wood vacuum forming mold, this mold can be used for many times. Therefore, if the plastic which is made through this mold is no problem, then the mold can also bed used in mass production. But there is a defect in such mold, if the product’s design needs to change, Then the fiberglass mold may not be used, and have to open a new fiberglass mold.
• Aluminum casting mold: This kind of mold is very usual in vacuum forming technology, For example,100 pcs products, maybe 80 pcs products are made through the such mold. As the cost of this mold is economic. Such like ABS/PE/HIPS/PP/PVC etc… can be used through this mold. Even if you may need to change the design of the product in the future, We may just do the modifications on this mold without opening a new mod like the fiberglass mold. This is another way to save your production cost. But usually, the transparent material will not use such mold for production, as the product’s surface will look bad through such mold.
• Aluminum block mold: This kind of mold is the most expensive mold compared with the above three molds. As such kind of mold is usually used for producing transparent material like clear PC/PETG/ABS etc…. Therefore the appearance of such a product is highly requested. Only such kind of mold can reach this request.

According to this: when you choose the mold for production, you need to pay attention to what kind of mold is suitable for your products.

And also in DITAI, we have a warranty service for the aluminum mold we produced for you: Once we keep working here and your mold is broken and can not use. We will make a new one for you. That means the mold is a one-time cost here. If you choose us for cooperation, you will need to worry about the mold cost of this product in the future.

For the vacuum forming production:  

The vacuum forming step, frankly speaking, this step is the best production step I like in the vacuum forming technology. As it is like magic, you can see a plastic sheet after heating, then it will work together with the mold we already made and make a plastic sheet into a 3D shape.

Following is the video of vacuum forming for you to know more:

Now let’s back to how to make the vacuum forming parts are in good quality. First, good quality and suitable vacuum forming machines are true. As a vacuum-forming machine can make sure the temperature control is more accurate during production. Then it can make the heating on the material more uniform, then the vacuum-formed part’s thickness will be more uniform.

Second, you need to make sure which mold is workable for your products. Usually, there are female mold and male mold for the producing these, followings are these two kinds of mold features:

• Male Mold: The interior surface of the material will touch the mold during production, then the interior size of your product will be accurate and it will be very good for you to do the assembly on this surface. The exterior surface will be a cosmetic surface, this surface usually can be seen and just has fewer things that need to do assembly.
• Female Mold: It is different compared with male mold, the exterior surface will touch the mold during production and the interior surface will be cosmetic surface.

So when using vacuum forming technology for making your products, you have to make sure which surface of the product you need is accurate and which surface you need to be beautiful. Then making the decision about which mold to produce.

The followings are the male mold and female mold pictures for your reference：

The second things are the material you choose for producing your products. The followings are the detailed material’s application for your reference:

And ABS material is the most popular material we are using for many products, So you can check following details of the types of ABS material.

ABS : most used material,Lightweight, Good impact strength, Poor solvent resistance,Hard, rigid, very good impact strength & weather resistance, medium cost Electrical Enclosures, Luggage, Sanitary & Vehicle Parts

ABS+UV: outdoor products that need UV protection

ABS+FOOD GRADE: food grade products

ABS+COLD RESISTANT: anti-cold, cold-resistant materials, ice buckets, etc

ABS+HIGH IMPACT: impact resistance, not easy to break under strong IMPACT

ABS+FIRE RESISTANT: flame resistant material

ABS+PMMA: smooth surface, scratch-resistant, not easy to yellow, but relatively easy to break, brittle

ABS+PC: smooth surface, easy to scratch, not easy to break, high temperature resistance, stable performance

ABS+ASA: the ASA material itself is equipped with UV resistance, so if the customer has strong requirements, it is recommended to add ASA.

Here are other material for you reference too:

HIPS: Crisp, cheaper than abs, more for display

PC: High strength and elastic coefficient, high impact strength, wide range of temperature;High transparency and free chromaticity;H.D.T. high;Poor fatigue resistance;Good weather resistance;Excellent electrical characteristics;Tasteless, odorless and odorless are harmless to human body and accord with hygiene and safety;Low shrinkage and good dimensional stability.

PETG:High transparent, extensive chemical resistance, environmental protection, high toughness, excellent tensile and impact resistance, secondary processing, excellent printing and coating performance, especially suitable for wall thickness transparent products

The last thing is according to our engineer’s experience during production. As they control the vacuum forming machines and very familiar with these. Also they will modify the temperature on the vacuum forming machines to make sure the final shape of the product is at the best condition.

Also these are based on the engineer’s mature experience. Luckily, Our DITAI vacuum forming engineer has been working in here for over 10 years, even our CEO and our production manager are both very familiar with vacuum forming technology, therefore, if a vacuum forming parts can be produced by other supplier. It must be no problem in Dongguan Ditai Plastic Products Co., Ltd.