Hydraulic vs Electric Injection Molding Machine
It has been proven that electric injection molding machines are much better than hydraulics for many reasons such as, less power consumption, very quiet operation, no oil leaks, repeatability, independent drives (it is easy to achieve parallel movement of the injection molding machine), reliability, no linear transducers and ideal for clean rooms.
Most of the injection molding machine manufactures tend to use the same control panel for both hydraulics and electric but the way electrics control velocity to pressure and screw recovery are different to hydraulic injection molding machines, some machines have shown some issues due to this, also when using core pulls on electric injection molding machines it may be required to get a mobile hydraulic core pull unit as some tools have hydraulic core pulls.
Unlike hydraulics, to open the safety gates it is required to turn off the drives before to unlock the door for safety reasons. Electric drives need some sort of cooling this can be either water or air cool. If you try to use it in a clean room it's better to get one which has water cooling for drives. Compare to hydraulics it is possible to set up a better process with electrics.
Power saving is better for all electric injection molding machine. Depending on the size of machine and configuration, electrics don't have quite the torque of a hydraulics - but fairly well up there. Cleaner and quieter for sure. We had a problem with the changeover to switchover speed and variance on ours - but the older ones used to achieve this via a melt pressure transducer. You need to compare like with like - a newer injection molding machine will generally perform better - so electric and hydraulic injection molding machine of the same generation. It's nice / a novelty I guess. On an electric injection molding machine that on start up, you don't have to wait for the motor to go star delta etc. and ramp up to the idle pressure etc. Leaks - oil leaks... not good! Hence possible product contamination. Specific injection pressure calculated in hydraulic - whereas possibly more accurate on an electric - but you need to have it calibrated regular. I think they vary on result from machine to machine (if you transferred the same job to a different machine that is) in the repeatability between injection molding machines on an electric. It's just as much a marriage of technology and mechanics on a hydraulic though. Yes, they are pretty good on repeatability, but you'd have to compare like for like again. I have had better results on a hydraulic injection molding machine in terms of process stability and control. but then not transferred exactly the same tool and process to another electric injection molding machine to compare (not suitable in size or functions for what we have). Have had great results from the electrics though, just didn't quite achieve the same repeatability of process.
Most of the injection molding machine manufactures tend to use the same control panel for both hydraulics and electric but the way electrics control velocity to pressure and screw recovery are different to hydraulic injection molding machines, some machines have shown some issues due to this, also when using core pulls on electric injection molding machines it may be required to get a mobile hydraulic core pull unit as some tools have hydraulic core pulls.
Unlike hydraulics, to open the safety gates it is required to turn off the drives before to unlock the door for safety reasons. Electric drives need some sort of cooling this can be either water or air cool. If you try to use it in a clean room it's better to get one which has water cooling for drives. Compare to hydraulics it is possible to set up a better process with electrics.
Power saving is better for all electric injection molding machine. Depending on the size of machine and configuration, electrics don't have quite the torque of a hydraulics - but fairly well up there. Cleaner and quieter for sure. We had a problem with the changeover to switchover speed and variance on ours - but the older ones used to achieve this via a melt pressure transducer. You need to compare like with like - a newer injection molding machine will generally perform better - so electric and hydraulic injection molding machine of the same generation. It's nice / a novelty I guess. On an electric injection molding machine that on start up, you don't have to wait for the motor to go star delta etc. and ramp up to the idle pressure etc. Leaks - oil leaks... not good! Hence possible product contamination. Specific injection pressure calculated in hydraulic - whereas possibly more accurate on an electric - but you need to have it calibrated regular. I think they vary on result from machine to machine (if you transferred the same job to a different machine that is) in the repeatability between injection molding machines on an electric. It's just as much a marriage of technology and mechanics on a hydraulic though. Yes, they are pretty good on repeatability, but you'd have to compare like for like again. I have had better results on a hydraulic injection molding machine in terms of process stability and control. but then not transferred exactly the same tool and process to another electric injection molding machine to compare (not suitable in size or functions for what we have). Have had great results from the electrics though, just didn't quite achieve the same repeatability of process.