Process Optimization: Thermoform!

These past few weeks, we've been optimizing the thermoforming process.

Main Design Goals:
1. We wanted to reduce the webbing produced from the brass pins. With too much webbing, the thermoform piece won't fit flat underneath the retaining ring. When we cut the pieces, we wanted to have the outside of the ring be as flat as possible.
2. Reduce Thermoforming time (decrease cost)
3. Reduce Dust Specks (increase quality)

Iterations:
1. We started out with the default settings, but there was some webbing on the pins. We could also see a significant amount of dust specks on the mold.

2. We performed a few iterations to reduce the dust
- peeling the dust protector a few seconds before thermoforming
- cleaning off the plastic with compressed air
- wiping off the mold with a clean cloth. This method produced more significant results.

3. To reduce the amount of webbing, we decided to increase the heat time and increase the oven temperature. Increasing the oven temperature was also a good way to reduce thermoforming time.

4. After increasing heating time, we started to get a few problems where the piece would be deformed from being pulled off the mold. We decided that a longer cooling time was needed, so we increased the form time to allow for increased cooling before removing the plastic.




Notes from Production Run:
We made ~120 pieces in 2.5 hours. Despite optimization runs beforehand, we discovered during the production run that the machine became very warm. This resulted in a few problems, where the piece would be deformed from being pulled off the mold. As a result, we lowered the oven temperature to 640 F.

During the production run, we introduced a "glitch" in the run on purpose, in order to simulate different operating conditions. The glitch was a decrease in heating time to 200 seconds.