How to create your molded silicone products?
This article mainly introduces the advantages, production equipment, production process, etc. of molded silicone products. If you want to create your own molded silicone product brand or business, and have a clear understanding of the advantages, application areas, design, and production process of molded silicone products, please go through this article. Molded silicone products have the advantages of high and low temperature resistance -40-230°C, strong chemical stability, and environmental protection. They are widely used in kitchens, baking, beauty, personal care, furniture, and medical or industrial areas.
What is the molded silicone product?
Molded Silicone products are products made from silicone rubber as the main material.
The molded silicone products can be different shape and size. Z.S.R offer high quality custom solution for molded silicone products variety of compounds & shapes. We work with big and small companies to accomplish the project at high end. Z.S.R custom molded silicone product: from conception to design, molding, printing, and packaging.
Molded silicone products are widely used in many fields, including:
- Molded Silicone products are an indispensable component for making copiers, keyboards, electronic dictionaries, remote controls, toys, silicone buttons, etc.
- Durable molded gaskets, packaging materials for electronic accessories, and maintenance materials for automotive electronic accessories.
- Electronic components and molded high-point pressed edges.
- Conductive silicone, medical silicone, foam silicone, molded silicone, etc.
- Sealing projects such as house construction and repair, high-speed kilometer joint sealing, bridge sealing, etc.
- Baby products, maternal and child products, baby bottles, and bottle protective covers.
- Kitchen products, kitchen utensils and related auxiliary kitchen products
- Medical device accessories. Due to the characteristics of silicone being colorless, odorless and non-toxic, it is widely used in the medical industry
- Promotional Gifts: Gifts, bracelets, watches, mobile phone cases, kitchenware, mats
In addition, molded silicone products also have high temperature resistance, low temperature resistance, good weather resistance, tear resistance, strong chemical stability and other characteristics, making them widely used in various industries.
What are the advantages of molded silicone products?
High temperature resistance: Molded silicone products can stand temperature range is -40 to 230 degrees Celsius, and can be used in microwave ovens and ovens
Easy to clean: Silicone products can be cleaned by rinsing with clean water, and can also be cleaned in a dishwasher
Long life: The chemical properties of silicone materials are stable, and the finished molded silicone products have a long service life
Soft and comfortable: Silicone materials are soft, comfortable to touch, flexible, and not easy to deform
Various colors: Can make different colors can be formulated according to customer needs
Environmental protection: No harmful substances are produced from raw materials to finished products
Electrical insulation performance: It has high resistivity and remains stable over a wide temperature and frequency range.
Low temperature resistance: It still has good elasticity at -60 to -70 degrees Celsius, and some specially formulated silicone rubbers can withstand lower temperatures.
Conductivity: It has good conductivity after adding conductive fillers.
Weather resistance: The physical properties change slightly under ultraviolet and other climatic conditions.
Thermal conductivity: It has good thermal conductivity after adding thermal conductive fillers.
Z.S.R offers various Custom molded silicone products with different shape and colors for different industry used such as kitchenware, homeware, baby, Medical ,Promotional etc.
Molded Silicone Products
Materials, Tools, Equipment
According to the molded products making process, there are 5 ways of silicone molding process: silicone rubber compression molding, LSR injection molding, silicone Drip molding, silicone Extrusion Molding, silicone Calendaring molding. Here in Z.S.R, For molded silicone products, we only have 4 molding process capacity. The different molding process need the different material, tools and equipment:
Silicone compression molding
Silicone Compression Molding
The main materials required for the production of molded silicone products include silicone raw material, crosslinking agent, catalyst, filler and additives. These materials working together to get the molded silicone products. Usually, silicone rubber raw material, crosslinking agent and filler are made into one component, and catalyst is a separate component. Therefore, mold silicone products is also called two-component vulcanized silicone products. In Z.S.R, All the silicone raw material we used is FDA or LFGB approved 100% Food Grade silicone rubber. The crosslinking agent, catalyst is Platinum if you needed.
Material preparation:
Choice the correct standard material according to your products function and test standard, such as FDA or LFGB material.
Silicone rubber mixer: The silicone rubber material mixer is used to mix the raw materials with additives such as vulcanizer and color paste. used to add vulcanizer, masterbatch and other auxiliary materials to the raw materials, and refine the raw rubber into usable raw rubber. Z.S.R have 2 Silicone rubber mixer workshop and machine to mixed the material for your molded silicone products.
Silicone Rubber cutter: cuts the refined silicone material into the required size and weight for making products. Z.S.R have 2 silicone rubber cutting machine to cut the material for your molded silicone products.
Electronic scale: Weight the cutted silicone rubber mixed material to ensure that the product is within the error range. We have more than 60 Electronic scales for each silicone compression molding machine.
Mold preparation: Before the molded silicone products making, Make the corresponding mold according to the product design requirements. The shape and size of the mold determine the shape and size of the product. The mold material is usually Steel or aluminum alloy (prototype tooling). Z.S.R International Group (HONG KONG) CO., LIMITED in-house tool shop consists 6 sets of advanced CNC machining centers and 3 sets of EDM spark machines for tooling; So, we can make most of the molded silicone product tooling and repair the molded silicone product tooling in our factory to catch up your time needed. The complete mold work shop can help you develop your new design silicone products and offer the creative molded silicone products OEM & ODM service for you.
Molding stage: Install the prepared mold on the vulcanizer to ensure that the mold fits well and is well sealed. the hydraulic compress molding machine (also known as the flat vulcanizer) provides the pressure, mold temperature and vulcanization time required for molding; After the mold is heated to the appropriate temperature, the prepared silicone raw material is placed in the mold for molding. During the molding process, parameters such as temperature, pressure and time need to be controlled to ensure that the product is molded completely and the size is accurate.Z.S.R have 32 sets silicone rubber molding machine to molded your silicone products.
The sandblasting machine is used to clean the molding mold and keep the production process clean.
Post-processing: The molded silicone products need to be post-processed such as deburring, cleaning, and drying to improve the appearance quality and durability of the product.
Quality inspection: Quality inspection is an important link to ensure the quality of silicone products, including appearance inspection, size measurement, performance testing and other aspects. Only products that have undergone strict quality inspection can be shipped out of the factory.
Packaging and shipment: Products that have passed quality inspection need to be packaged and shipped. The selection of packaging materials should comply with relevant standards and requirements to ensure that the product is not damaged during transportation.
Z.S.R one day mass production capability for 15000-59999/pcs molded silicone products according to the structure and size with the 32 sets molding machines.
Contact Z.S.R to create your own molded silicone products.
Would like to know more about silicone compression molding or how to make molded silicone rubber products, check Silicone compression mold.
L.S.R injection molding
Liquid Silicone Rubber (LSR) Injection Molding
Liquid silicone injection molding mainly uses liquid silicone rubber (LSR) material. LSR is a two-component thermosetting material, usually mixed in the form of A/B components. Component A contains a platinum catalyst, while component B contains a cross-linking agent. LSR is in a liquid state before curing and becomes an elastomer after curing.
Material preparation:
Choose the appropriate liquid silicone type based on a comprehensive assessment of the product’s purpose, properties, shape, etc. For example, the medical industry should choose medical-grade silicone materials, and infant products generally use highly transparent food-grade liquid silicone raw materials. Prepare the appropriate color paste so that it can be mixed to achieve the final LSR molded product color that customer needed.
Mixing equipment: It is used to mix the liquid silicone of components A and B to ensure accurate proportions and uniform mixing. Common mixing equipment includes static mixers and vacuum tanks, etc.
Vacuum pump: used to remove bubbles from liquid silicone to ensure that the surface of the molded product is smooth and flawless.
Mixing container and stirring rod: containers and tools used to mix liquid silicone to ensure uniform mixing.
Mold preparation
Silicone Injection Mold: The mold is the carrier for liquid silicone injection molding. Its design and manufacturing must consider factors such as the fluidity of silicone, shrinkage after solidification, and the shape, size and wall thickness of the product. The precision and durability of the mold have a direct impact on the quality of the final product. Z.S.R have 12 experienced engineer will consider your molded LSR products structure and design your silicone injection mold with the correct parting line and gate. Then Z.S.R team will make your precision injection tooling in our one roof mold workshop.
Injection molding machine: The injection molding machine is the core equipment for liquid silicone injection molding, which is used to inject the mixed liquid silicone into the mold. Common types of injection molding machines include vertical injection molding machines and horizontal injection molding machines. Vertical injection molding machines are suitable for small-batch production and automatic molding of complex products, while horizontal injection molding machines are suitable for large-scale production, especially in the production of products that require high precision and smooth surfaces. Such as silicone baby nipple, baby pacifier or silicone medical products. The mold needs to be preheated to 170~200℃, and the liquid silicone is injected into the mold through the injection molding machine. The injection pressure and temperature need to be precisely controlled.
Curing: Liquid silicone undergoes a curing reaction at high temperature, and the catalyst accelerates the curing process
Demolding and post-processing: The cured LSR molded silicone products needs to be demolded from the mold, and some products may also require post-curing treatment, cleaning and removal of impurities
Quality control: Products must undergo strict quality inspections, including tests on size, hardness, transparency and elasticity
Packaging and transportation: Products that pass quality inspections will be cleanly packaged and shipped to the location specified by the customer
Z.S.R own 7 sets LSR injection molding machine to put your LSR molded silicone products on mass production.
Z.S.R one day mass production capability for 10000-69999/pcs molded silicone products according to the structure and size with the 7 sets molding machines. Liquid injection molding is very friendly to silicone products with high precision, high requirements and large-scale production to ensure product consistency, and is the most suitable choice.
Want to know more information about LSR molding or how to make L.S.Rmolded silicone rubber products, check Liquid silicone rubber LSR injection molding.
Contact Z.S.R to create your own L.S.R molded silicone products.
Silicone Dripping dispensing molding
Multi-Color Dripping Molding
Need prepare silicone as the main material for dispensing molding, usually liquid silicone (LSR) and solid silicone, color paste, vulcanizer, and also need silicone vacuum machine and automatic dispensing machine. As this kind of molding have two kind of molding process. We also call them co-injection molding. Mixed L.S.R material dripping from the automatic dispensing machine first, then heat and curing. Put the solid silicone rubber material on and close the molds put them silicone vacuum machine Vulcanization molding.
L.S.R Material prepared
Choose the appropriate liquid silicone type based on a comprehensive assessment of the product’s purpose, properties, shape, etc. For example, the medical industry should choose medical-grade silicone materials, and infant products generally use highly transparent food-grade liquid silicone raw materials. Prepare the appropriate color paste so that it can be mixed to achieve the final LSR molded product color that customer needed.
Solid silicone material prepared
Silicone rubber mixer: The silicone rubber material mixer is used to mix the raw materials with additives such as vulcanizer and color paste. used to add vulcanizer, masterbatch and other auxiliary materials to the raw materials, and refine the raw rubber into usable raw rubber. Z.S.R have 2 Silicone rubber mixer workshop and machine to mixed the material for your molded silicone products.
Material preparation:
Mixing equipment: It is used to mix the liquid silicone of components A and B to ensure accurate proportions and uniform mixing. Common mixing equipment includes static mixers and vacuum tanks, etc.
Vacuum pump: used to remove bubbles from liquid silicone to ensure that the surface of the molded product is smooth and flawless.
Mixing container and stirring rod: containers and tools used to mix liquid silicone to ensure uniform mixing.
Silicone Rubber cutter: cuts the refined silicone material into the required size and weight for making products. Z.S.R have 2 silicone rubber cutting machine to cut the material for your molded silicone products. Electronic scale: Weight the cutted silicone rubber mixed material to ensure that the product is within the error range. We have more than 60 Electronic scales for each silicone compression molding machine.
Drop molding machine: This is the core equipment for silicone drop molding. It is mainly used to move the dispensing needle of LSR material that has been vacuum scheduled to the specified position of the drop molding mold, and control the amount of dispensing by controlling the time of extruding the paste resin and the speed of the needle moving. The drop molding machine is mainly composed of two parts: the control system and the machine structure. Commonly used control systems include LOGOSHOP, CRS-DriptMold, etc.Adjust the glue dispensing speed, glue dispensing position and glue dispensing thickness of the glue dispenser according to the requirements of the product. Ensure the normal operation and glue dispensing effect of the glue dispenser. After debugging, conduct a trial run to ensure that the glue dispenser can work stably and accurately.
Molding stage: Place the mold under the glue dispenser, control the glue dispensing position and speed of the glue dispenser, and accurately drip the silicone mixture onto the mold. According to the needs of the product, glue can be dispensed multiple times until the required thickness and shape are achieved.
Heating equipment for silicone curing: During the drop molding process, heating is required to make LSR resin react chemically and become solid. Therefore, heating equipment is essential. Place the glued product in a constant temperature area to cure the silicone in few minutes.
Second Molding stage: Put the cutted mixed solid silicone rubber material on the curred LSR, then closed the mold and put the mold to hydraulic compress molding machine (also known as the flat vulcanizer) provides the pressure, mold temperature and vulcanization time required for molding; The vulcanization temperature and pressure are adjusted according to the silicone raw material and product requirements. Z.S.R have 16 sets silicone dripping molding line to molded your multi-colored silicone products.
Cooling and demolding: After the vulcanization is completed, remove the mold from the vulcanizer, open the mold after cooling to room temperature, and take out the molded silicone product.
Post-processing: The molded silicone product is trimmed, deburred, and other treatments are performed to achieve the ideal shape and surface quality.
Z.S.R own 16 sets dripping molding line to put your multi-colored molded silicone products on mass production.
Z.S.R one day mass production capability for 12000-39999/pcs molded silicone products according to the structure and size with the 12 dripping molding lines. Silicone dripping molding is very friendly to silicone products with multi-colored, 3D effect, IP and cute products to ensure the products with colorful and 3D effect without post printing.
Contact Z.S.R to custom your multi-colored cute silicone products.
Would like to know more about co-injection dripping molding or how to make multi-colored silicone molded products, check: Co injection dripping molding.
The customization process for create your private molded silicone products
In Z.S.R, we can custom the molded silicone products shape, size, color, pattern, brands, logo by silkscreen printing, full-color printing, or laser engraving for your silicone products, if you would like to custom your brands molded silicone products contact Z.S.R.
Customizable Content:
Appearance (shape, color): Shape can be round, square or creative shape by developing the new tooling. The color can be white, blue, black or use the pantone book number to customized. You also can get mixed color, marble color or double colored, multi-colored appearance.
Material properties: You can customization the material with HTV material or LSR material. The hardness you can choice from 5-80 shore A, Translucent to highly transparent, Safety level from Food Grade to Medical grade, tensile properties from ordinary to high level).
Mold type: Steel, Copper or Al.
Molding method: LSR Injection molding, HTV compression molding, dripping molding.
Labeling: Logo on the tooling and get the logo products. We also can Screen Printing，Laser Engraving，Heat Transfer Printing your logo on the molded silicone products already.
Packaging: zip bag, back card PET box, color box.
Shipping method: DHL, FedEx, Air shipping or Sea shipping.
How to create your molded silicone products brand or start your molded silicone products business?
Choose the design and style of the silicone molded products that you want to customize from Z.S.R’s existing designs. Or Starting with your new product idea to create your molded products, our engineers can proceed with the CAD/Stp/Step/X-T drawings just based on your sketches.
Our design and manufacturing engineers will work with your team to ensure designs meet processing requirements and can be produced consistently and cost-effectively. For your ODM or OBM project, we can sign an NDA non-disclosure agreement with you. It wards off any copycats that plagiarize your designs.
Design 3D structure of the silicone protector according to your idea.
2. Z.S.R will make the prototype tooling to get the prototype to let you confirm. If all go through, we will make the mass production tooling for you and remake the samples for get your approved confirmation samples.Make the molded silicone product tooling according to the molded silicone product design requirements (Signal color or multi color) use the different metal, such as steel, copper or AL to ensure the accuracy and durability of the tooling.9
3. Prepare the molded silicone product raw material: Raw silicone material are the key to molded silicone product’s products. Usually, molded silicone products meet certain environmental protection standards, so molded silicone product material are no exception. Normally, environmentally friendly Fumed silicone rubber is selected for customized processing, while many manufacturers use Precipitated silicone rubber for processing. Although the product is not greatly affected, it is still different Fumed silicone rubber from in quality after a long time.
Mix the silicone color according to your molded silicone product needed. Cutting the molded silicone product material in the correct weight. The color matching principle of the silicone raw materials used in molded silicone products is basically the same as the color matching principle in art painting. The white translucent silicone raw materials are combined with the addition of vulcanizers by adding color pastes of corresponding color proportions into them to mix and knead to obtain the corresponding required color. The color matching color is generally based on the international Pantone color card, namely PANTONE color or actual color samples.
4. Feeding the prepared molded silicone products mixed material on-Feeding the molded silicone product material no matter the Liquid silicone rubber or solid silicone rubber in to the tooling.
5. Curing the molded silicone product: The molded silicone products material is feeding into the mold after mixing, and the molded silicone products material is filled into the entire space of the mold through heating and pressure. The temperature, pressure and time control of the molding process directly affect the size, shape and quality of the molded silicone products.
No matter the molded silicone product was made by: Compression molding or silicone dripping molding or LSR molding.
6. Demolding: After the curing is completed, take the molded silicone product product out of the mold.
7. QC the molded silicone product: Quality inspection: Visually inspect the molded silicone product to see if there is lack of molded silicone product material, uncooked Ness, or impurities
8. Post-processing: Carry out the molded silicone product and then do the post processing and treatment, such as trimming, grinding, polishing, spraying, inspection, etc.
9. Secondary vulcanization: Secondary vulcanization is a process that must be handled for any product that has passed the inspection. The main reason why molded silicone products have a certain smell is that they have not been subjected to Secondary vulcanization baking, and the catalyst of the raw molded silicone products material of the products has not been emitted. At present, many silicone product manufacturers basically handle it, but the time and temperature of the Secondary vulcanization treatment are different. Bake in oven 2-4 hours to meet FDA or LFGB Standard. LSR molded silicone product may do not need this process.
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10. LOGO or Pattern printing on the molded silicone products if needed: screen printing or laser engraving. Most of time, we put the molded silicone product logo on the silicone tooling directly. Check the products branding service to know more.
11. Final Quality control and testing: After all the molded silicone product making process finished, we will arrange the final QC for the molded silicone product before the delivery.
12. Package and Warehouse: Z. S. R offer custom packaging solutions you need for all your molded silicone product packaging. Our custom packaging includes paper boxes, PE/PVC boxes, printed labels, hangtags, barcode stickers, etc to protect the safety of the molded silicone product during transportation and storage, while ensuring the safety and aesthetics of the molded silicone product.
In Z.S.R, we manufacture the molded silicone product from concept to full-scale production. We try our best to deliver the quality molded silicone product to our customer.
Notice
When you buy the molded silicone product, should pay attention to:
- Material and Certification: The molded silicone product should meet your needs and is non-toxic and environmentally friendly to ensure safe use. lead, PVC-, and phthalates-free. Check whether the molded silicone product product has a safety test certificate to ensure that it meets the relevant food safety standards. In China, molded silicone product products can be checked for compliance with the limit requirements of GB 4806.11-2016 “National Food Safety Standard Food Contact material and Products”, while foreign products should be checked for US FDA certification, CPSIA certification or EU LFGB certification, etc. Food-grade silicone is preferred, IN USA -FDA Approved -molded silicone product. The molded silicone product should be 100% food-grade silicone raw silicone material to ensure safety. Ensuring that it complies with FDA and LFGB standards. Avoid choosing molded silicone product made of ordinary plastics because they may release harmful substances. Real liquid silicone is almost odorless. If there is a pungent smell, it may not be real liquid silicone.
- Choose a reliable partner: When choosing the molded slicone products supplier, you should first check whether it has relevant production and quality certifications to ensure that the raw materials, production processes and testing standards used in its production process meet relevant requirements. In addition, you can evaluate the supplier’s reputation and strength by checking its qualification certificates, production licenses and quality certifications.
- Understand product performance parameters: The performance parameters of silicone products are an important basis for evaluating their quality. Common performance parameters include hardness, tensile strength, tear strength, temperature resistance, aging resistance, etc. When purchasing, you should understand the specific requirements of these parameters and compare the product data provided by different suppliers.
- Sign a purchase contract and quality assurance agreement: When purchasing, you should sign a purchase contract and quality assurance agreement with the supplier to clarify the rights and obligations of both parties, delivery period, payment method and other terms to ensure the smooth progress of the procurement process and the quality and safety of the molded silicone products.
- Pay attention to acceptance and inspection: After the product arrives, strict acceptance and inspection should be carried out to check whether the quantity, specifications, appearance, etc. of the product meet the requirements, and perform performance testing and quality evaluation. Such as hardness: The hardness of the molded silicone product has an important impact on the service life and quality. Too low hardness will cause the mold to deform, and too high hardness will cause the mold to be fragile. Therefore, you should pay attention to the hardness of the molded silicone product when purchasing it, Detail processing: The details of the mold determine the quality of the product, including the texture, edges, angles, etc. of the mold. Pay attention to the details of the mold when purchasing to ensure the quality of the product.
- Understand the production process and mold design: For complex silicone products, it is necessary to find a manufacturer with a professional design team and risk assessment capabilities. In addition, understanding the production process and mold design has an important impact on product quality.
- Pay attention to price and cost performance: While paying attention to the price, you should also pay attention to the cost performance of the product and choose products with high-cost performance, that is, products with reasonable prices, stable performance and long service life.
When you would like to buy the molded silicone product, you should comprehensively consider factors such as material, safety, partner, QC, and cost to ensure to fit your needs.
Conclusion
No matter you would like to create the molded silicone product with your logo or design for sales, promotional or events. Our high-quality customize molded silicone products are perfect for branding, corporate gifts.
Z.S.R. customized branded molded silicone product with added your logo, design pattern, text may be your good choices.
In Z.S.R, all the steps from raw molded silicone products material selection to molding, curing, and quality control, each step plays a vital role in creating your molded silicone product that meet safety standards and perform well in their intended applications.
Contact Z.S.R to brand your own molded silicone product by contract manufacturing.
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About Author: Z.S.R International Group
Z.S.R International Group(Hong Kong) co., Limited, is a one-stop supplier for molded silicone products and silicone products molding solution provider in the consumer products field. We offer OEM services from silicone product design to Silicone products contract manufacturing. We have the capability for custom silicone tooling, LSR(Liquid silicone Rubber) molded silicone products, solid silicone molded products, molded silicone multi-colored products. We also can custom molded silicone, custom molded LSR, custom molded dripping injection dispensing(co-injection) silicone multi-colored products.
