Track: Undergraduate Student Paper Competition

Abstract

Injection machines are already on the market with varying prices based on its capacity. Even the smallest machine on the market has a capacity starting from around 100 grams per second, with an expensive price starting around USD 13,000. Furthermore, the machine also has a large power consumption as well. This condition is unfavorable to the start-up business from the lower middle market, which has limited resources and budget. In this work, the design of the plastic injection molding, which is smaller and cheaper compared to the one available in the market is proposed. This proposed machine is available in the middle production capacity. In this work, the temperature of the heater and the pneumatic electronically are controlled in order to melt resin plastic perfectly. The PID control algorithm is applied to control the heater and the pneumatic of the system. The component used to control the heater is a solid-state relay. This electronic component can be used as a switch which is turned on and off the heater until it reaches certain temperature condition according to the feedback from the temperature sensor. Moreover, once the temperature has reached the certain degree that makes the plastic material into a semi-liquid condition, then the pneumatic active to push the barrel.  During the experiment, the temperature measured by the sensor on the heater. The result shows in accordance with the desired target temperature to melt the resin plastic perfectly without exceeding the temperature limit of the system. The temperature target accuracy of the obtained system is 90% to 95%.