CN101574873A - Plastic component with patterns and manufacturing method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a plastic component with a pattern and a manufacturing method thereof. The plastic component with a pattern comprises: a film substrate; a film-forming pattern formed on the film substrate by a thermal transfer process; a composite material layer formed on the film-forming pattern; and a plastic substrate formed on the composite material layer.

Description

Patterned plastic component and method of making same

technical field

The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a plastic component, and in particular to a method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern.

Background technique

The general in-mold decoration printing process (In-Mold Decoration, IMD) is mostly applied to the color decoration processing of plastic casings, such as computer plastic casings or mobile phone plastic casings, etc. can be formed by this process. The traditional in-mold decoration printing process mostly prints the ink pattern on one side of a plastic film such as polycarbonate film by screen printing, and then prints the plastic film with the ink pattern on one side. Set it on the molding die, and stamp out the desired shape by hot pressing or high pressure forming. Then, after the forming mold is removed, the excess part of the plastic film is cut, and then the cut plastic film is placed in the injection mold. Then, after the ink pattern is formed on the side of the moldable plastic film, the plastic is injected to cover the ink pattern, and the in-mold decoration printing process is completed.

The above-mentioned IMD process mainly utilizes the characteristics of plastic molding, wear resistance, scratch resistance and good light transmission of PC plastic film, and the product can be better than traditional plastic injection molding. In addition, the PC plastic film used in the IMD process usually has a thickness between 175 μm and 380 μm, so that the PC plastic film itself has a considerable hardness and can meet the conditions for plastic molding, and because of this, it can only be printed by screen printing (because gravure printing cannot printed on hard surfaces).

However, the images that can be printed by screen printing are limited by the low mesh resolution (thicker), and are generally only used for printing text, lines or simple pattern coloring. If used to produce high-resolution, full-color patterns, the resulting pattern will have poor shadow quality. Furthermore, when producing color patterns by screen printing, at least two screen plates are required to register various colors, so the process is relatively complicated and the manufacturing cost is also high.

Contents of the invention

The invention provides a plastic component with a pattern, comprising: providing a film substrate; a film-forming pattern formed on the film substrate through a thermal transfer process; a composite material layer formed on the film-forming pattern; and A plastic substrate is formed on the composite material layer.

The present invention also provides a method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern, comprising: forming a film-forming pattern on a carrier, forming a film substrate on the film-forming pattern, and performing a thermal transfer process, so that the The film-forming pattern is transferred onto the film substrate. Next, remove the carrier. A composite material layer is formed on the film-forming pattern of the film substrate. Secondly, a plastic substrate is formed on the surface of the composite material layer.

Compared with the traditional method of using screen printing to form full-color patterns on plastic components, the plastic components manufactured by the present invention use inkjet printing technology and transfer printing technology to directly print full-color patterns or high-resolution images on the computer. The image pattern is formed on the plastic component without using multiple stencils for color registration of various colors. In addition to reducing manufacturing costs and improving production efficiency, it can also be used to produce high-resolution image patterns. In addition, since the film-forming pattern of the plastic component in the above embodiment is covered with a film substrate, the film-forming pattern can be prevented from being scratched by external force and peeled off.

Description of drawings

1 to 11 are a series of cross-sectional views of a patterned plastic component manufactured according to an embodiment.

Detailed ways

A method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern will be described below with reference to the process sectional views of FIGS. 1 to 11 .

Referring to FIG. 1 , a film-forming pattern 12 is formed on a carrier 10 . The carrier 10 is the carrier for the ink pattern transfer process, and can be made of materials such as hard board, soft board or release paper. In addition, the surface treatment of the carrier 10 can be performed according to the properties of the ink to be formed on the surface, such as hydrophilicity, dehydration or easy release treatment. Moreover, the carrier 10 of appropriate material can also be selected according to different ink formulations. For example, for UV photoresist inks that need to be illuminated, light-transmitting release paper can be selected; for thermosetting inks, heat-resistant release paper can be selected. shape paper. In this embodiment, the carrier 10 is a heat-resistant release paper, such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic paper. Next, use computer graphics to draw a pattern or input a full-color pattern into a computer through an image scanner, and then use an inkjet printer connected to the computer to print these patterns on the carrier 10 to form a film-forming pattern 12 . The film-forming pattern 12 may include a single-color pattern or a full-color pattern with high resolution.

Referring to FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 , a film substrate 14 is formed on the film-forming pattern 12 , and a thermal transfer process is performed to transfer the film-forming pattern 12 onto the film substrate 14 . The film substrate 14 can be a transparent plastic film or an opaque plastic film. In this embodiment, the thermal transfer process includes covering the film substrate 14 with the film-forming pattern 12 formed on the carrier 10, and sending it together with the film substrate 14 into a thermal transfer machine (not shown in the figure), Among them, this thermal transfer machine has the functions of pressurization, heating and constant temperature. Afterwards, a pressure 17 is applied on the carrier 10 and baked at a high temperature for several minutes, so that the film-forming pattern 12 is solidified and formed.

Next, referring to FIG. 4 , the carrier 10 is removed, so that the film-forming pattern 12 on the carrier 10 is transferred to the film substrate 14 .

Referring to FIG. 5 , a composite material layer 26 is formed on the film-forming pattern 12 through a printing process, such as ink-jet printing or screen printing. In one embodiment, the composite material layer 26 includes one or more color ink layers 16, one or more high temperature resistant ink layers 18 formed on the color ink layer 16, one or more impact resistant ink layers 20 , formed on the high temperature resistant ink layer 18 , a bridging agent material layer 22 formed on the impact resistant ink layer 20 , and an adhesive material layer 24 formed on the bridging agent material layer 22 . Among them, the color ink layer 16 can increase the contrast, density and saturation of the film-forming pattern 12, and the adhesive material layer 24 is used to combine with the plastic substrate in the subsequent process. In this embodiment, each layer of the composite material layer 26 is formed by a screen printing process.

Please refer to FIG. 6 to FIG. 8 , which show a preforming step, so that the film substrate 14 formed with the composite material layer 26 and the film-forming pattern 12 is formed into a specific geometric shape. As shown in FIG. 6 , firstly, the above-mentioned film substrate 14 is set on a molding die 28 with the side where the composite material layer 26 is formed. Next, as shown in FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 , the film substrate 14 can be heat-formed and cooled to form a desired shape by means of thermocompression forming, and then the forming mold 28 can be removed.

As shown in FIG. 9 , a punching and cutting process is performed to remove the redundant portion of the film substrate 14 after the thermocompression molding.

Please refer to FIG. 10 and FIG. 11 , a plastic substrate injection step such as an in-mold forming process is performed to form a plastic substrate 38 on the exposed surface of the composite material layer 26 on the film substrate 14 . Firstly, the film substrate 14 that has been cut and formed with the composite material layer 26 and the film-forming pattern 12 is placed between the upper and lower molds 30a, 30b of an injection molding machine (not shown), wherein the film substrate 14 is formed with The sides of the composite material layer 26 and the film-forming pattern 12 face the lower mold 30b. Then, the plastic substrate is injected into the mold cavity 31 between the upper and lower molds 30a, 30b through the runner 32 in the lower mold 30b, so that the plastic substrate and the adhesive material layer 24 of the composite material layer 26 (please refer to FIG. 5 ) are combined with each other and cured at a predetermined temperature to form a plastic substrate 38 . In this embodiment, the plastic substrate 38 can be transparent or opaque plastic material.

As shown in FIG. 11 , after the upper and lower molds 30a, 30b are removed, a plastic component 60 with a pattern is formed.

Compared with the traditional method of using screen printing technology to form full-color patterns on plastic components, the plastic components manufactured in the above embodiments use inkjet printing technology and transfer printing technology to directly print full-color patterns or high-resolution images on the computer. The image pattern is formed on the plastic component without using multiple stencils for color registration of various colors. In addition to reducing manufacturing costs and improving production efficiency, it can also be used to produce high-resolution image patterns. In addition, since the film-forming pattern 12 of the plastic component 60 in the above embodiment is covered with the film substrate 14 , the film-forming pattern 12 can be prevented from being scratched by external force and peeled off.

Although the present invention has been disclosed above with the embodiments, it is not intended to limit the present invention. Any person skilled in the art can make various equivalent changes or substitutions without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Therefore, the present invention The scope of protection should depend on what is defined in the claims.

Claims (14)

1. A method for making a plastic component with a pattern, comprising the following steps: forming a film-forming pattern on the carrier; forming a film substrate on the film-forming pattern, and performing a thermal transfer process, so that the film-forming pattern is transferred to the film substrate; remove the vehicle; forming a composite material layer on the film-forming pattern of the film substrate; and A plastic substrate is formed on the surface of the composite material layer. 2. The method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 1, wherein after the step of forming the composite material layer, it also includes a forming step, so that the film substrate is formed by hot pressing , forming a specific shape. 3. The method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 2, characterized in that after the molding step, a step of punching and cutting the film substrate is also included. 4. The manufacturing method of a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 1, wherein the composite material layer comprises a color printing ink layer, a high temperature resistant ink layer, an impact resistant ink layer, a bridging agent material layer and then The agent material layer is sequentially formed on the film-forming pattern. 5. the manufacture method of the plastic component with pattern according to claim 4, it is characterized in that, wherein said color printing ink layer, high temperature resistant ink layer, impact resistant ink layer, bridging agent material layer and adhesive material layer utilize Formed by screen printing process. 6 . The method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 1 , wherein the film-forming pattern is formed by an inkjet printing process. 7 . 7 . The method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 1 , wherein the thermal transfer process includes curing the film-forming pattern. 8 . 8. The method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 1, wherein the film substrate is a transparent plastic film. 9. The method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 1, wherein the film substrate is an opaque plastic material. 10 . The method for manufacturing a plastic component with a pattern according to claim 1 , wherein forming the plastic substrate on the surface of the composite material layer uses an in-mold injection molding process. 11 . 11. A patterned plastic component, comprising: thin film substrate; The film-forming pattern is formed on the film substrate through a thermal transfer process; a composite material layer formed on the film-forming pattern; and A plastic substrate is formed on the composite material layer. 12. The plastic component with a pattern according to claim 11, wherein the composite material layer comprises a color ink layer, a high temperature resistant ink layer, an impact resistant ink layer, a bridging agent material layer and an adhesive material layer , are sequentially formed on the film-forming pattern. 13. The patterned plastic component according to claim 11, wherein the film substrate is a transparent plastic film. 14. The patterned plastic component according to claim 11, wherein the film substrate is an opaque plastic material.

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