As part of AQS tour, we visited injection molding plant.
Molds for the cell phone case. The most labor intensive part of injection molding is making the molds. The quality of the part depends on quality of the mold. The mold can take more than a month to make. The molds are first cut with CNC machine, and polished with electrical discharge machine or/and by hand. The holes are drilled by hand and and some machining is done by hand. Once the molds are made the plastic parts can be produced quickly using injection molding machine.
The shop where the molds are made. Looks like any normal metal machine shop.
A mold for the casing of a fridge
Injection molding machine, where hot plastic is injected into the mold. The parts take only few seconds to produce.
close up
finished molded parts
There is a special machine that polishes the molds with electrical discharge machine. The smoother mold makes the parts look better.
The factory owner proudly displaying the casing of bunnie Huang’s open source computer Novena, which was manufactured in this factory.
Factory workers going back to their dorms after a days work. The dorm building is right outside the injection molding factory.
Outside of the dorm; life as usual
