Heat Staking Equipment
U.S. Heatstake designs and builds heat staking equipment for plastic assembly — impulse benchtop presses, multi-tip tooling, brass insert installation systems, and full custom automation cells. We are based in Roanoke, Indiana, and every machine we ship is engineered around the specific plastic part it has to assemble. Nothing is pulled from a catalogue. If you need a press that forms eight bosses on a cosmetic dashboard bezel without leaving a mark, that is what we build. If you need a rotary cell that stakes and insert-installs in one station at production takt, we build that too.
What sets our equipment apart is impulse heating. Traditional hot-probe machines hold the tip at temperature all the time. Our presses heat on demand for the brief moment needed to soften the boss, then cool the tip under compressed air before it retracts. Patent-pending Weld by Energy control delivers a metered amount of energy to each joint — one setting per stake, the same head on cycle 1 and cycle 100,000. The cycle does not drift between operators, shifts, or resin batches.
What Is Heat Staking?
Heat staking is a plastic joining method that uses heat and pressure to reshape a moulded plastic boss into a permanent head. The head captures a second part — usually a metal bracket, a PCB, a lens, a label, or another plastic part — against the host. The result is a mechanical fastener formed in place, with no screws, no adhesive, and no cure time. It works on essentially every thermoplastic: ABS, PC, PC/ABS, nylon, polypropylene, acetal, PPS, and the common engineering grades.
Types of Heat Staking Equipment
Most heat staking work falls into four equipment categories, and the right one depends on your part, your resin, and your volume.
Benchtop Heat Staking Presses
The Model BTP benchtop heat staking press is the workhorse. Pneumatic ram, impulse-heated tooling, 0.1 mm encoder accuracy on head position, and support for up to eight stakes or inserts per cycle. It is the right machine when you need real production throughput without committing to a full automation cell, and it scales from prototype runs to multi-thousand-piece-per-shift production with the same tooling philosophy.
Impulse Heat Staking Systems
Impulse heat staking forms plastic bosses into permanent rivet-style heads that capture brackets, lenses, PCBs, and sub-assemblies inside a plastic housing. The impulse approach eliminates the sticking, stringing, and witness marks that come with hot-probe staking, and the energy-metered control survives a customer Cpk audit without operator handwaving.
Brass Insert Installation Equipment
Brass insert installation heats and presses threaded brass, stainless, or aluminium inserts into moulded pilot holes, giving plastic parts permanent reusable metal threads. The same impulse platform that stakes bosses installs inserts with superior pull-out strength and perpendicularity, and many parts need both processes in one machine.
Custom Heat Staking Automation
Custom automation wraps staking and inserting into multi-station rotary cells, inline integration with moulding lines, and robotic part handling. This is the right call once production volume and takt time outpace a standalone benchtop press.
Materials and Applications
Heat staking equipment works across the engineering thermoplastics and is one of the most cost-effective ways to assemble plastic parts at high volume. Unit cost is low because there is no fastener consumable. Cycle time is short because multiple stakes form in one stroke. We supply equipment to automotive Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, medical device manufacturers, electronics programmes, and consumer product brands.
How to Choose Heat Staking Equipment
Match the equipment to the part, not the other way around. Count the stakes per part, identify the resin and whether the surface is cosmetic, set a production volume and cycle-time target, and decide whether you also need brass inserts. A benchtop press covers prototype through mid-volume; a custom cell is the answer when volume and takt demand it. For a deeper technical comparison, see our heat staking vs ultrasonic welding guide and the design guide for boss and stud geometry.
Get a Quote
Send us the part drawing, the resin, the number of stakes or inserts, and your production volume target. We will recommend the right equipment configuration and tooling approach. Contact us to start.