ultrasonics
When contemplating use of hot plate welding, a critical consideration is the thermoplastic material to be joined. Generally, one would want to join materials with relatively low melting temperatures, low thermal conductivity, a good spread between the melting and the … Continued
Hot plate welding is the oldest of the plastics welding processes. Even today, some assemblies are put together by sliding a hot piece of iron between two parts until the plastic flows and then pressing the parts together by hand. … Continued
A heat staking machine can be used for hot tool insertion as well as thermal staking or swaging. The most common inserts for hot tool insertion are brass female-threaded fasteners placed in molded holes to provide good purchase for bolts … Continued
Should you call a thermal staking machine a heat staker? Most thermal staking presses actually have interchangeable tooling. Since they can be easily be converted from heat staking to thermal insertion, embossing, or degating, they should probably more properly be … Continued
Hot tool staking probably started with a screwdriver or some similar tool heated with a torch and then applied to a tab or post to capture another part. The process does not work much differently today, though the equipment and … Continued
It’s hard to say which thermoplastic joining process came first, hot plate welding, hot tool staking, solvent bonding, adhesives, snap or press fits, or fasteners. We know that ultrasonic welding came in the early 1960s, vibration welding in the late … Continued
One of the more basic questions about plastics assembly is how to know which process to specify for the assembly. Often, the size and configuration of the parts and the material inolved will rule out various options. Since very few … Continued