I have this medium size mold i want to infuse with. My question is what is the best way to set up the vacuum and resin lines to get a good infusion?
http://s210.photobucket.com/albums/bb186/Fastrr_photos/?action=view¤t=sidemold1002.jpg
Likea dis! Maybe cut the distro on the inlet side to match the part shape, not across the flanging area.
Make sure your flow media covers all areas you want resin to reach.
And the resin feed line doesn’t need a “T” where it goes into the part.
waht materials are you using? Most of my infusions I only cover about 60-70% of the part with flow media, but I guess that is because the resin I use is pretty thin so dont go off that lol. Usually when I hve a complicated mold I make it a square. That makes it easy when I make my bag. It is small enough you can go from one corner to the other with out a problem.
I use a lot of different fabrics, resins, and flow media.
Only for tiny parts can you expect the resin to travel through woven material itself.
If this part were infused, instead of prepreg, and the flow media only covered 60-70% of it, it would result in a lot of dry area and a $80k loss:
$80K, that’s all? come on try it once LOL just kidding. 
Yeah i usually cover 90% or so of the mold with flow medium
I use one layer of 3K 6oz twill cf and then two layers of 6oz plain weave glass. I have had the resin stop short of complete infusion due to lack of sufficient flow medium. that was infusing with 350cps slow epoxy resin.
I think I will run two or three vacuum lines into the mold as shown above. For resin inlet i’ll do two lines instead of the T.
instead of using 2 vacuum lines just use a bunch of breather material and make sure it cover the whole back edge. that will help to make sure the resin is drawn at equal rates across the part. if you have just 2 lines the resin will tend to travel towards the lines instead of a steady rate across the part
Also you can pipe in 2 inlets to insure better flow
here is a small wind turbine blade for my masters thesis
I piped in 2 lines to ensure full wet out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swpCKleyzgo
I have been doing it that way, using spiral wrap for the vacuum line inside the mold along one full side of the mold, problem was with where the resin was flowing in from.
This is just one of those tricky parts to infuse i think.
I made a good one by wet lay up yesterday. maybe i should just stick to what works for this part… dunno.
Don’t overcomplicate this little part. It’s a very small piece, and should infuse in about 30 seconds with just 1 resin feed and 1 vac line.
Make sure the feed line is on top of the flow media. Put flow media or peel ply on top of the opening of the feed line so the bag doesn’t block it off.
Make sure the peel ply extends beyond the flow media.
Make sure the flow media does NOT reach your vac line or any air path drawing vacuum from it.
Use either spiral flow or breather around the wider side of the part. This will pull resin in all directions, instead of straight into the vac line. Air goes through peel ply very easy, resin does not. When the resin goes beyond the flow media, it will slow down a lot, and it will continue to flow in the path of least resistance.
When the part is fully wet out, clamp off the resin feed. Resin will continue to flow for a little bit, and will have to fill the spiral wrap pr breather before it goes into the vac line.
Hopefully this pic helps: (Notice how the peel ply extends beyond the part in all directions. This creates a 360* vacuum path, and the resin will even travel backwards from the feed port.)