An injection molding machine includes a cylinder that accommodates a molten resin, a discharging nozzle, a piston that discharges the molten resin from the discharging nozzle, and one or more processors configured to execute the following functions. The functions include calculating a target pressure at which a flow rate of the molten resin discharged from the discharging nozzle becomes an indicated flow rate, controlling a pressure of the molten resin in the cylinder such that the pressure becomes the target pressure, acquiring a temperature of the molten resin in the cylinder, and acquiring a pseudo-plastic viscosity corresponding to the temperature of the molten resin. The target pressure is calculated based on the indicated flow rate, the temperature of the molten resin, the pseudo-plastic viscosity, and the size of the discharging nozzle.

An additive feeder system is presented which is operable for use in a plastic injection molding machine including an injection component and a clamping component. The additive feeder system includes a feeder control unit, a feeder supply mechanism and feeder dosage control mechanism. The additive feeder system is operable to provide a specific dosage of the additive materiel in real-time for mixing with the raw material to achieve desired product characteristics. The additive feeder system may be applied to injection molding and extrusion, such as molding processes, plastic molding processes, blow molding, compression molding, extrusion molding, injection molding and laminating, and comprising additive feeders, for example for color mixing and nutrient supplements.

An injection molding machine includes a heating cylinder having a gas inlet, a screw, a gas cylinder, a pressure reducing valve configured to reduce a primary pressure of a gas from the gas cylinder to a secondary pressure, a gas supply portion configured to supply the gas at the secondary pressure to the gas inlet, an injection material pressure detection device configured to detect an injection material pressure in a vicinity of the gas inlet, and a controller. The controller is configured to detect an abnormality by comparing the injection material pressure with the secondary pressure.

A method is disclosed of controlling a plant for dehumidifying and/or drying plastic material in granular and/or micro-granular and/or powder and/or flake or similar form, this plant including a process fluid generator and at least one dehumidifying/drying hopper for feeding a respective user machine associated with the plant and including a melting device for melting the plastic material and a moulding device for moulding, in particular by injection moulding and/or blow moulding and/or compression moulding, the plastic material. The method of controlling includes the steps of detecting in the user machine a pressure (P.sub.pwp) of the plastic material in melted state and modifying at least one process parameter (D.sub.p) of the plant on the basis of the detected value of this pressure (P.sub.pwp).

A moving-body monitoring device has a position detection unit that outputs positional information of a moving body, a proximity sensor that detects the moving body, a first storage unit that stores a position when the moving body having moved in a first direction is detected as first positional information, and stores a position when the moving body having moved in a second direction is detected as second positional information, and a calculation unit that calculates a fixed-point position of a detecting region of the proximity sensor during monitoring as fixed-point positional information based on the first and second positional information. The device also has a second storage unit that stores reference fixed-point positional information, and a monitoring unit that, when a deviation between the fixed-point and reference fixed-point positional information goes beyond a stipulated range, determines that a positional deviation amount of the moving body exceeds a tolerance.

A pressure measurement device mountable to an injection unit that injects molding material of an injection molding machine, and an injection molding machine are provided. The pressure measurement device includes: a measurement cylinder mounted to the injection unit and through which the molding material injected by the injection unit flows; a plurality of dies mounted to the measurement cylinder and through which the molding material flows, and having different specifications; a flow path switching pin that selectively switches a discharge destination of the molding material to any one of the plurality of dies; and a pressure sensor that measures a pressure of the molding material in the measurement cylinder.

In one aspect, there is provided an injection molding system configured to operate in a plurality of cycles. The system comprises, amongst other things, a controller that is configured for performing a comparison of a variable pressure setpoint with a target pressure value. The controller is configured to, when the target pressure value is less than the variable pressure setpoint by at least a predetermined lower bound, (i) decrease the variable pressure setpoint to a reduced variable pressure setpoint and (ii) not further decrease the variable pressure setpoint from the reduced variable pressure setpoint until the pump assembly operates for a plurality of stabilizing cycles at the reduced variable pressure setpoint.

In one aspect, there is provided an injection molding system configured to operate in a plurality of cycles. The system comprises, amongst other things, a controller that is configured for performing a comparison of a variable pressure setpoint with a target pressure value. The controller is configured to, when the target pressure value is less than the variable pressure setpoint by at least a predetermined lower bound, (i) decrease the variable pressure setpoint to a reduced variable pressure setpoint and (ii) not further decrease the variable pressure setpoint from the reduced variable pressure setpoint until the pump assembly operates for a plurality of stabilizing cycles at the reduced variable pressure setpoint.

A method of determining a solution state of a gas in a plastic melt used in a plastic shaping method includes: (vi) providing the plastic melt together with the gas in a chamber, (vii) alteringin particular reducinga volume of the chamber to alter a pressure of the plastic melt together with the gasin particular increased from a first pressure value to a second pressure value, (viii) introducing the plastic melt into a shaping cavity, (ix) computing at least one compression parameter characteristic of the compression behaviour of the plastic melt, in particular a modulus of compression, from the first pressure value and the second pressure value, and (x) determining from the at least one compression parameter whether the gas is substantially completely dissolved in the plastic melt and/or a solubility limit of the gas in the plastic melt is determined from the at least one compression parameter.

An injection molding machine uses a controller to effectively control its operation. The controller may determine and/or receive information regarding the machine's maximum load capacity, and may also determine a current operational load value of the machine. The controller may cause the machine to operate at any number of combinations of settings of operational parameters which result in the machine operating at or below the maximum load value by adjusting any number of machine parameters associated with the injection molding machine based on feedback sensors measuring real-time operating conditions of the machine.