1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to molds and molding methods, and particularly, to a mold for molding optical fiber connectors and a molding method for the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Optical fiber connectors typically include a lens and a blind hole behind the lens. The blind hole receives an optical fiber. The lens receives and guide light from the optical fiber. The alignment accuracy between the blind hole and the lens is very important to the optical transmission ability of the optical fiber connectors.
The injection molding is a current molding method for molding the optical fiber connectors. The mold used in the injection molding includes a core pin used to mold the blind hole and a lens forming portion corresponding with the core pin. During the injection molding method, the core pin must be kept in alignment with the lens forming portion to make sure of the alignment accuracy between the blind hole and the lens of the molded optical fiber connector.
However, the central axis of the blind hole usually deviates from the central axis of the lens in the optical fiber connector made by the above-mentioned method. The reason includes following points. First, the thermal expansion of the mold during the injection molding method can cause an axial offset between the longitudinal axis of the core pin and the central axis of the lens forming portion (the central axis of the lens forming portion coincides with an optical axis of the molded lens.). Second, the impact of the molding material during the molding method will cause the core pin to bend, thus causing an deviation angle between the longitudinal axis of the core pin and the central axis of the lens forming portion.
Therefore, a mold for forming optical fiber connectors and a method for making the mold, which can overcome the above-mentioned problems, is needed.