Patent ID: 8609012

Claim:
A scalable injection molding system comprising: a molding press having an A-side wall on an A-side of the molding press and a B-side wall on a B-side of the molding press, the B-side opposite the A-side; at least one delivery system comprising an injection unit coupled to the molding press, the injection unit operable to deliver molten material to a manifold in fluid communication with the injection unit; at least one molding face pair comprising a cavity face and an opposing core face; and a scalable cavitation system; wherein the scalable cavitation system comprises: a cavity plate having defined on a first molding face thereof at least two non-overlapping cavity zones, each cavity zone having defined therein a plurality of cavity positions, each cavity position being independently and interchangeably configurable as a functional cavity position or as a non-functional cavity position, at least one cavity position on the first molding face being configured as a functional cavity position; a core plate having defined on a second molding face thereof a plurality of core positions, each core position being interchangeably configurable as a functional core position or as a non-functional core position, the core positions configured such that, when the molding press is closed: the first molding face directly contacts at least a portion of the second molding face; a one-to-one correspondence exists between the cavity positions and the core positions, between the functional cavity positions and the functional core positions, and between the non-functional cavity positions and the non-functional core positions; and a mold cavity is defined between each functional cavity position and an opposing functional core position; and a plurality of interchangeable multi-gate feed systems, wherein: one interchangeable multi-gate feed system is disposed in each cavity zone having at least one functional cavity position therein; each interchangeable multi-gate feed system is in fluid communication with the manifold through a primary drop; each interchangeable multi-gate feed system is uniquely designated to exactly one associated cavity zone selected from the at least two cavity zones; each interchangeable multi-gate feed system comprises a number of individual feed gates equal to or greater than the number of functional cavity positions of the associated cavity zone, up to the total number of cavity positions of the associated cavity zone; each functional cavity position of the associated cavity zone is coupled to exactly one of the individual feed gates.