Kleiss Gears has announced that it is expanding its injection molding capabilities with the addition of a micro-injection molding machine. With the continuous miniaturization of products the market demand for ever smaller molded precision polymer gears has been steadily increasing, particularly within the medical industry.
“We have been quite successful molding miniature gears with our conventional injection-molding presses,” says Rod Kleiss, president, “but we found that to produce true micro-gears on our current machines resulted in too much waste material to make the gears cost-effective for our customers.”
After assessing the available technology, Kleiss Gears selected the Microsystem 50 from Battenfeld for its modular production cell technology, enabling injection molding, handling, inspection, and packaging all within clean-room conditions. The new Microsystem efficiently molds gears weighing below 100 mg with almost no material waste and significantly less energy consumption compared to the traditional injection-molding machines, allowing Kleiss Gears to pass this savings on to their customers.
“We are proud to be the only gear molding company in the United States using this technology to produce micro-molded precision gears,” says Kleiss, “and we are in the design and tooling stages for the first scheduled production run on the new Microsystem for a major medical OEM.”
For more than 20 years Kleiss Gears has specialized in the custom design and manufacture of injection molded polymer gears. As an ISO 9001:2000 certified manufacturer, Kleiss Gears provides a full range of gearing services including design, tooling, molding, inspection, testing, and prototyping. For additional information visit online at [www.kleissgears.com].
