Principles of Engineering For Activity 2.2.2 Manufacturing Process for a Pen

1. Principles of EngineeringFor Activity 2.2.2Manufacturing Process for a Pen Student Presentation by Titus Wu Per. 2

2. Components of a Pen www.madehow.com

3. Making the ink • Workers called compounders make batches of inks in large vats following specific formulas. • Computer sensors watch over the timing and temperature of these mixtures. • While being mixed by automatic vats, raw materials are being pumped into the vats. • The cooling/heating rate and mixture rate are being controlled by computerized controls and slows down or speeds up when necessary for the specific type of formula. Here, ink vats are mixing ink batches inside. The pipes are what pumps raw material in. www. Flickr.com

4. the metal components • The ball in the ballpoint pen is a tungsten carbide ball and is usually supplied from outside. • Other metal parts of the pen are made in the factory. • Brands of brass are stamped by machines into thousands of small discs. • Discs are melted and poured into compression chamber. • In the chamber, a steel ram and a plunger makes the metal into die cast mold and compresses the metal into pen pieces. • Die is removed and pieces ejected. They are cleaned and cut into desirable shapes. www.madehow.com A diagram of a compression chamber aka die press

5. The plastic components • Plastic components are either constructed using injection molding or extrusion. • Both extrusion and injection molding start off by supplying plastic as granules into a large hopper. • In extrusion, a long rotating screw forces these plastic grains through a heating chamber. It becomes a flowing mass, and comes out of the die. After cooled, it is cut into pieces. • More complex components involve injection molding. In this method, plastic is heated and forced through a nozzle into a mold by a movable plunger. It cools and solidifies into that mold pen shape. Wikipedia The processes used to make plastic components of pen: injection molding (left) and extrusion (right). Cheresources.com

6. Assembly • The ballpoint is attached to the reservoir, which is filled with ink. • The spring is placed on the barrel reservoir. • All of what is constructed so far is placed into a pen body. Then, other components such as the cap, clip, etc. are incorporated onto that pen body. • The pen is then designed, coated with paint, etc. • We now have a pen! A pen assembly machine Tradeee.com

7. Sources cited • Litherland, Neal (n.d.). “Process of Manufacturing Ball Pens and Refills”. Retrieved from http://www. ehow.com/how-does_5557322_process-manu facturing-ball-pens-refills.html • Romanowsky, Perry (n.d.). “Ballpoint Pen”. Retrieved from http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Ballpoi nt-Pen.html#b