A plastic injection molding machine has an object oriented programmed routine
to
control the molding cycle of the machine. The programmed routine implements the
inter-related molding cycle of clamp, inject, hold, eject and recover by development
of classes corresponding to machine structure performing basic molding cycle steps.
The basic classes use object oriented concepts of data encapsulation, inheritance,
polymorphism, abstraction and the like that are linked together to produce objects
during run time. The classes in turn include controller, observer and actuators
classes. The controller class functions as a state machine. The observer class
functions to determine the current state and the actuator class produces command
signals controlling class related machine hardware. A modeling system is also disclosed
for constructing the OO programmed routine for any injection molding machine using
existing classes, principally by difference.