Annual Savings with a SuperShot

The capability of a Tymac SuperShot 680K shot end was tested on a 400 ton cold chamber aluminum die casting machine. A two cavity die with a moving core producing vacuum nozzles each weighing about 1 pound. The total weight cast was 3.67 pounds. Three castings were inspected both with, and without, low impact being used. The shots produced without low impact had substantial flash. The shots taken with low impact had very little flash. As seen in the table below the total weight as cast was lower without low impact. This is because significant spitting occurred when low impact was disabled. The amount of metal ladled remained the same during the test. The amount lost due to spitting was 0.06 pounds per shot.

Measurements were taken in several areas, including part thickness and distance to the core. Very little variation from specification (less than 0.002in) was noted in the castings produced with low impact. The castings that did not have the benefit of low impact averaged 0.007 - 0.009in thicker in almost every measurement, and the average flash thickness was .012 inches. The castings produced with low impact were 0.060 pounds lighter. After accounting for the flash and spitting, low impact saved 0.21 pounds of metal per shot. To maintain the casting quality of the castings being made without low impact, more metal would need to be ladled to return the biscuit length from 0.39in, to the 0.83in original average. The additional amount ladled calculates to 0.233 pounds. In melting this additional metal, melt losses (assuming a loss factor of 10%) amount to .019 pounds.

The total metal savings with low impact is 0.229 pounds per shot. Assuming an average production rate of 75 shots per hour, and 4,000 hours of production per year, savings calculate at 67,200 pounds of aluminum per annum.

	without Low Impact	with Low Impact
Cycle Rate/Hour	51	68
Expected Die Life	100,000	115,000
Melting/Holding Cost	$0.060	$0.054
Metal Cost	$0.60	$0.60
Scrap Rate	10.0%	1.0%
Total Part Cost	$1.74	$1.29
Parts Shipped	91,980	173,547
Total Savings:		$215,154.00