How to manufacture Plastic Cable Ties?

buy plastic cable ties

May 14, 2019

Plastic cable ties are a versatile ribbon pull-tight seal. Given that a plastic cable tie is an inexpensive security zip tag, it fits almost all applications.

A better understanding of the plastic seal manufacturing process will help you a lot when purchasing. This post will reveal the plastic seal manufacturing process.

 

Parts of a Plastic Cable Ties

  Before diving into the manufacturing process, let’s take a look at the structure of a plastic security seal. Generally speaking, the body mainly has two parts – the seal flag and the ribbon.  

The seal flag

  The seal flag is a plastic plate with your logo, running numbers, barcode printed on it. So that one can identify his property instantly at first sight. In general, there are a big flag, medium flag, and small flag for different applications.  

Plastic Ribbon

  A ribbon is also known as a plastic strap. It connects with the seal flag. There are flat ribbon, cylinder ribbon, bead type ribbon, and zig-zag straps on the market. Insert the tail of the ribbon into the locking chamber and pull it tight to lock it.

The Locking Chamber

 

To keep an excellent tensile strength, indeed, some plastic seals have a separate locking chamber. The locking chamber has two parts – the metal clip and the plastic cap.

 
Metal / Plastic Clip
 

Add a clip to the plastic seal with attention to stop the strap seal from moving backward. Metal clips or plastic clips are the most popular. We also rolled heat staking technology to secure the metal clip or plastic clip to the body. Therefore it will provide clear evidence of tampering if forced open or cut.

 
Plastic Cap
 

Not all cable tags have a plastic cap. Only those plastic seals with metal clips or plastic clips request plastic caps. The plastic cap was fixed to the lock head with heat staking technology to secure the metal teeth.

 

Manufacturing Process of Plastic Cable Ties

 

Although the plastic security seal only has two main parts – the seal body and the locking chamber. However, it’s not that simple to make one. The plastic seal manufacturing process goes through various steps as follows.

Step 1: Prepare the Raw Material

 

To begin with, the staff will pick out the polypropylene resin, colorant, addictives, and other raw materials. Then, to ensure a good break strength, you’d better chooses100% new PP material for production. Owing to the seal made with virgin PP material has a better pull fore and no odor smell. In contrast, the one made with recycled material has insufficient break-force and odor smell. Not to mention some recycled material is even toxic to our human body.

The color masterbatch and colorant are very common for plastic coloring. Of course, color masterbatch also has better dyeing force, and the plastic seal came out with bright color. But it’s also more expensive.

All manufacturers have their secret formula for seal manufacturing. That is to say. All materials should be at a precise percentage. After that, they are blending all material gets it ready for the molding process.

Step 2: Injection Molding

 

Injection Molding is a manufacturing process for producing parts in large volume. It is most typical in mass-production processes where you need to create the same part thousands of times.

After all the material is thoroughly blended, resin pellets are loaded into a barrel to be melted. All materials will be compressed eventually and injected into the mold’s runner system. And you will get plastic seals with the same design. Ejector pins facilitate the removal of the seal from the mold where it falls into a loading bin. After that, the workers will ship plastic seals to the department for installing.

3: Assembling Locking Chamber

 

Indeed, some plastic cable ties are one-piece construction. However, the manufacturer also adds metal or plastic locking clips to some plastic seals. This kind of security seal houses the metal insert in a separate casing. We use rolled heat staking technology to secure the metal insert to the locking chamber. So that provides clear evidence of tampering if forced open or cut.

After finishing the injection molding, the workers will install one metal or plastic teeth to each seal. They are finally sealing the metal or plastic insert with a cap through a heat staking machine.

4: Custom Printing

 

One of the indicative seal benefits is that you can make your custom imprint at a meager cost. Usually, there are three methods for a custom imprint on zip tag.

 

By Laser Engraving
 

With laser engraving technology, you can laser engrave almost any imprint- logos, codes, serial numbers, and fully dynamic data from ERP systems. Even the most minor components and details can be marked quickly and nicely with the laser etching. However, laser engraving imprint will be quite different on different color tags. Therefore, we need to test the printing before mass production.

 

By Hot Stamping
 

Hot stamping is relief printing that transfers pre-dried ink or foils to a surface at high temperatures. It is more complicated compared with laser engraving.

First, you need to make a metal mold for the contents you will print. Second, install the metal mold on the hot stamping machine, with the zip tag to be stamped placed beneath it. Finally, press the metal mold on the seal tag and mark the dry paint or foil on the product’s surface.

Hot stamping is not always suitable for all kinds of imprints. For example, it only fits logo and number, words printing but not for consecutive barcode or QR code printing. Because when you created a mold, you can not change the molding imprint.

5: Inspection & Packaging

 

Before packaging, there will be a sampling inspection and pull-force test for those seals.

Firstly, the quality control members will check the plastic cable ties by visual inspection. Secondly, sort out those defective seals to ensure each security seal you receive works perfectly. They are third, packing those qualified products with a moisture-resistance plastic bag. And then store them in a corrugated carton box.

Finally, the finished products to our warehouse and wait for shipping.

 

Conclusion

 

To summarize, a high-quality product always carries the hard work, dedication and professionalism of each team member. And find a good supplier is the first step for a successful business. So if you’re starting your line with this product, make sure that you find a reliable seal manufacturer.

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