Heated nozzle manifolds in a common plane interconnected through connector manifolds

In an injection molding apparatus having a heated central manifold and a plurality of heated nozzle manifolds mounted in a mold with a melt passage branching in the central manifold for conveying melt through the nozzle manifolds from a central inlet in the central manifold to a plurality of heated nozzles extending from each nozzle manifold, each nozzle seated in the mold with a central melt bore extending in alignment with a gate leading to a cavity, the improvement wherein;

• the central manifold is centrally located relative to the mold, a pair of connector means extend in opposite directions from the central manifold thereby defining a central axis, and at least one pair of heated nozzle manifolds are mounted on opposite sides of each connector means, whereby each nozzle manifold is offset from the central axis with the central manifold, the nozzle manifolds and the connector means all extending in a common plane, and locating means locate at least one of each of the connector means and each of the nozzle manifolds relative to the mold, the melt passage extends outwardly from the central manifold to each connector means, then branches in each connector means and extends sidewardly to each of the nozzle manifolds, and then branches in each nozzle manifold to extend to the melt bore through each nozzle extending from each nozzle manifold, each connector means is slidably connected rearwardly to the central manifold and slidably connected sidewardly to each adjacent nozzle manifold, thereby to compensate for thermal expansion and contraction of the heated manifolds relative to the cooled mold sufficiently to enable at least one of the connector means and the nozzle manifolds to be located relative to the mold, each nozzle manifold being made and mounted so thermal expansion within the central manifold, connector means, and nozzle manifolds slides the branches of the melt passage into alignment with the melt bores through the nozzles when the manifolds and connector means are heated to the operating temperatures.