• Hot Plate Welding

This is an automatic work cell with a rotary table indexer. The operator will load two of the plastic parts, white item on the right side of the picture, into the nests on the center, lower and upper sections of the machine.

The station will then index 90° and an air cylinder will slide a pair of hot plates in between the plastic parts. All of the plastic parts will then be brought in contact with the hot plates for a timed interval.

Once the plastic parts are hot then the hot plate is retracted and the plastic parts are pressed together with air cylinders. They stay clamped together for a short time then the station indexs to the next station where a pneumatic gripper lowers and grabs the parts to remove them from the machine.

Here are some parts we injection mold, post machine and then hot plate weld together. Specifically the clear PVC reservoir at the top of the picture is a good example of hot plate welding. The base plate is molded as a single part, the upper portion is the reservoir which is a second molded part and the grey barbed fittings are also indivual molded and machined pieces.

The sequence of events are:

The base plate is welded to the reservoir.

This subassembly is then rotated and the two barbed ports are then welded to the reservoir.

Note that the barbed ports are grey PVC and they have no trouble welding to the clear reservoir.

Hot plate welding is a great way to take basic molded parts and create a complicated assembly without adding anything to the parent material. Give us a call and we can help you convert your machined parts to finished hot plate welded assemblies.