Makrolon Polycarbonate materials offer a unique balance of beneficial features this includes high temperature resistance, impact resistance and optical properties position polycarbonates between commodity plastic materials and engineering materials.
Polycarbonate is a very high quality material. Even though it has higher impact-resistance, it possesses lower scratch-resistance and thus a hard coating can be applied to polycarbonate eyeglasses as well as polycarbonate exterior automotive equipment. The properties associated with polycarbonate tend to be along the lines of those of Acrylic PMMA materials, and yet polycarbonate is stronger, it is usable in a wider temperature range and is a bit more expensive. This plastic polymer is highly transparent to visible light and it has better light transmission characteristics than most grades of glass.
Polycarbonate has a glass transition temperature of about 150 °C (302 °F), as a result it softens slowly above this point and flows above about 300°C (572 °F). Tools are required to be held at higher temperatures, generally above 80 °C (176 °F) to help make strain- and almost stress free products.
Unlike almost all other thermoplastics, polycarbonate can undergo large deformations without breaking or cracking. As a result, it is sometimes processed and formed without needing to be heated using standard sheet metal techniques, for instance forming bends on a brake. Even for sharp angle bends with a tight radius, no heating is usually necessary. This makes it useful for prototyping applications where transparent or electrically non-conductive parts are necessary, which should not be produced from sheet metal. Understand that PMMA/Plexiglas, which is similar in appearance to polycarbonate, but it’s brittle and can’t be bent unless it is heated.
The light weight of polycarbonate, in contrast to glass, has led to advancement of electronic display screens that replace glass materials with polycarbonate, for use in mobile and portable devices. Such displays include newer e-ink and several LCD screens, though CRT, plasma screen and other LCD technologies which still do require glass for its higher melting temperature and the ability to be etched with finer detail.
Other miscellaneous items manufactured from Polycarbonate include durable, lightweight luggage, MP3/digital audio player cases, computer cases, police riot shields, instrument panels, and common style blender jars. Many toys and hobby products are produced from polycarbonate parts, e.g. fins, gyro mounts, and flybar locks for use with radio-controlled helicopters.
For use in applications subjected to weathering or UV-radiation, a special surface treatment is needed. This can be a coating (e.g. for improved abrasion resistance), or as a coextrusion for enhanced weathering resistance.
The Makrolon Polycarbonate is a thermoplastic that at the beginning, starts as a solid material in the form of small pellets. In a manufacturing process called injection molding, this pellet material is heated until they begin to melt. The melted liquid polycarbonate is then rapidly pushed into a mold, compressed under high pressure and cooled to form a finished product , all in just a minute or so.
