Dear all,
I am new on this forum.
We are a small company producing electronic security products.
We have some molds in our pocession. We do not have a plastic injection machine.
Our current plastic products are being produced now by a subcontractor.
I am thinking of buying a plastics injection machine myself.

In a fire detector there is a detecion chamber. This is made of black plastic. It consist of a kind of labyrinth to avoid light coming in. Smoke particles reflect the licht of an led to make fire detection.
De production of such a detection has to be each time exactly the same. This to avoid false alarms due to light refections.

A fire detector is made of 5 plastic parts.
- detector base
- back of detector
- pcb cover
- detection chamber,
- white housing

I will need 10000 pieces up to 50000 pieces a year of each part.

each part does not weigh more then lets say 25 grams.

My other security housing I would like to be able to make with the machine weighs 243 grams. For this I ony need 3000 parts a year.

I would have liked to buy a machine in the range of 14000 euro.
I found on alibaba UP128, 130 ton, but maximum shot 230 grams for 13800 dollar.

Can you help me with the following :
- Should I look for a Chinese machine or a second hand machine like Arburg or Battenfeld or Engel or Kraus Maffei or Sandretto or Netstal. These machines I find are between 15 and 20 years old and the cost is almost as high as a new Chinese machine.
- Will i be able to make repetitive high quality plastic detection chamers with such a Chinese machine ?
- What other kind of Chinese machines would you suggest ?
- In worse case I will make 250 000 plastic parts in a year. If it takes 20 seconds per part (I do not know how fast this goes), the machine will run only 170 days in a year. Or at the start it will only run 30 days in a year.
- I will take the molds that are currently with my subcontractor and use them on my own machine. I have no experience in injection molding. What is your idea : just continue with your subcontractor or you can realy do this yourself. (We are technical people.) I am sure the molds are good, as my subcontractor has made my products in it.

Thanks !