Top-notch TXM tooling: Nypro's secret weapon

Nypro Inc. (Clinton, MA) intends to be a major player in the global TXM parts manufacturing business. Though Nypro is known worldwide mostly for its injection molding services, Randall Barko, vp of marketing and sales, believes Nypro’s expertise and resources in moldmaking will be key to its success in TXM. In fact, Barko says good tooling will be the biggest contributor to its winning hand.

Nypro already has a 220-ton JSW TXM press on the floor of its Advanced Technology Center at Nypro Singapore Pte. Ltd. Barko says first samplings have already been performed there, using existing customer tooling transferred in. Low-volume production jobs are in the works. Nypro is the only TXM molder in Singapore.

"We are not yet experts by any means. We are continuing to learn," Barko says. "We will be adding secondary operations to be ready for high-volume applications—including CNC machine tools for automating the finishing processes—and automated painting, which is already a way of life for us in many of our facilities, including those in China, Ireland, and Wales."

Barko continues, "We intend to transfer what we learn throughout our worldwide organization [24 plants in 10 countries]. And we are forming a separate division with people and resources dedicated to TXM in Clinton and in Singapore."

A Features Mold
Nypro has built what it calls a "features mold." Barko explains that it was designed "to see what we can and cannot do molding magnesium. It is a fresh approach to tooling. We don’t know what we don’t know. Nevertheless, we have seen some very encouraging results from it, reinforcing our belief that TXM is a real and viable opportunity."

The mold is being run as part of a development project involving Nypro and some of its customers at Husky’s Advanced Manufacturing Center in Bolton, ON on a TXM machine of unspecified tonnage. Ed DeVault, Nypro’s senior process engineer, describes the mold’s features.

"It measures about 5 by 8 inches. Other than its conical sprue, we built it just like a mold for plastics molding, rather than for diecasting. It combines a number of different special design features, including differing wall thickness, holes in a keypad area, a gear, an undercut requiring an internal lifter, an external thread, bosses, and posts."

In only its second trial it ran fully functional parts, exhibiting very little flash, even around the holes in the keypad area. "A plastic part would have weighed three times as much," Barko notes, "but we do not see TXM as a cheaper alternative to plastics molding or diecasting. It’s a more cost-effective process. Plastic needs to be metallized, and metal needs to have molded plastic features. This is why TXM is more cost-effective—it does both. Total value add is where the cost reduction comes in."