Manifold Heaters, Formed on the Molder’s Floor

Summary

Hot runner manifolds use custom formed tubular heaters that almost never sit on a shelf. When one fails, the molder waits while a new element is drawn, tooled and formed. Nexthermal’s Nextflex element is formable by hand in the manifold groove, so a molder can order from stock today and be running tomorrow.

Case Study

The plastics hot runner manifolds use very specific custom formed tubular heaters. These heaters are rarely available off the shelf, except occasionally from the hot runner tool manufacturer. Each of these tubular heaters is designed and manufactured for a specific manifold groove geometry and configuration. The heater must have an exact fitment to the groove, otherwise it will not work.

The primary objective of an injection molder that experiences a hot runner manifold heater failure is to replace that heater immediately. Because each manifold requires a unique and specific tubular heating element, it is very uncommon for local distributors or manufacturers to keep that specific element in inventory for immediate shipment.

The result is that the molder now faces lengthy down time because the element must be custom manufactured. This is even more complex and challenging because the tubular heater typically has multiple serpentine bends and must be formed in a fixture that is milled to the exact formation pattern. Further, this requires either a customer supplied CAD drawing or physical sample. Many molders do not have either available to provide the heater manufacturer. The result is long delivery time and generally very expensive elements and associated tooling charges, further exacerbating an already difficult situation.

“Molders that experience a failed manifold heater today can order a Nextflex heater and be back in operation tomorrow.”

Nexthermal manufactures a totally differentiated product: Nextflex heaters. Nextflex is a formable variation of a tubular element that enables the molder to form the element in their factory by placing the heater into the existing manifold groove and tapping it into place. No drawing or forming fixture is required.

Nexthermal maintains a large variety of straight Nextflex heaters in stock for immediate shipment, which removes the drawing, the tooling charge and the custom build from the critical path entirely.

Conclusion

The constraint here was never the heater itself. It was everything that had to happen before the heater could be built: a drawing the molder did not have, a fixture that had to be milled, and a custom run that had to be scheduled. Moving the forming step to the molder’s own floor removes all three.

This solution applies to any injection molder running hot runner systems with manifolds. If a manifold heater is a recurring source of downtime, send us the groove configuration and we will identify the stock Nextflex element that fits it.