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Project Time: July 2021
Industry: Sanitaryware valve system
Material used: 316 L
Qty: 100000pcs mim parts
Case background
This is a customer who makes household water valves in Guangdong Province, China. Before choosing us, he found many MIM factories. He wants to choose a supplier to provide products with high performance, high quality and appropriate price. After many consideration, he found us. The parts used 316L need 500 hours acid salt spray test which no company could promise this. Due to the special hollow design and thin wall structure, MIM factories cannot promise the consistency because of MIM technology defect.
This part used 316L material with high physical properties with diameter 13.5mm*26mm height, weigh 5.7g. Harber MIM delivery the ripe experiences and solution.
Solution
17-4PH material is suitable for many industries, especially the medical industry. The customer required one material have hardness about 30-35HRC and no rusty. Harber MIM recommend 17-4PH. Due to the strange shape of the product, there are still many holes and long hooks, we developed a tooling with 2 cavities to control the quality well. It need at least 3 steps to reshape and correct the profile. We made a gauge to test the correction one by one. Please see below picture
It is a good choice to passivate the surface of this material to protect the product.
At the beginning, the products used 304L but cannot pass acid salt spray test. We discuss using 316L and changed the sintering method for many times. Finally, Harber MIM could pass at least 500 hours, which is the limit value and most of MIM manufacture cannot made it.
Another, in order to increase parts consistency and no deformation, we customized one kind of ceramic gasket. In this way, we spent a lot energy and cost to reach the result. Harber MIM still need to do secondary process to correct the shape.
316L material is soft, corrosion resistant, high-density, and can directly contact the skin, which could widely use in household, daily use and medical.
