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Posted on:? July 5, 2023| By Candy, WayKen Marketing Manager

We are living in an era when new products are entering the market every other minute, or their modifications. How is the manufacturer supposed to keep up with this pace? The competition is setting new records on product development cycles. Take Apple, for example. They were making one model of a phone yearly just a few years ago. Now, as we know, they are making 3 or even 4. What does it mean? First of all, they have to design a new model at least three times as fast. It also means that they have less time to test it.

Due to the development of the 3D-modeling technologies, a lot of smaller companies choose to forgo the product design prototyping phase, using visualization methods instead. Truly, this saves you some time in regards to development but you will lose that much more in case any kind of mistake arises. And be sure,? it will happen. But well, any kind of idea is expressed much better with an example. So, let me illustrate my point with a case study in the automobile industry.

What The Case Is About？

I decided to make a redundant voltmeter for cars so that it could be fitted into the lighter. Newer models have it but a lot of older ones don’t. It is a useful device to monitor the performance of the automobile circuits. It is especially good for determining whether you should do something about your generator. Useful in some cases, it is not needed all the time, so making it redundant is a good choice.

Modeling And Designing

All the lighter ports in automobiles are standard, as well as a small area around them, so I modeled a representation of a car front panel with all the right dimensions using Solidworks. The display and the electronic parts, as well as the port, I decided to buy the first prototype. Then, using the 3D modeling tools, I got the purchased parts added to the panel and constructed a rough enclosure sketch.

Refining And Visualizing

The final design Tungsten Steel Inserts of the voltmeter had to look minimalistic and stylish, I decided that I wanted nothing to do with glue or screws, so I made some clasps that fitted the holes in the different pieces of the enclosure. Now, after a little bit of tinkering, I got the form that I wanted. A red-black smooth minimalistic design with one button.

I decided that it was possible for the consumer to forget the device in the lighter port. And it would be extremely bad for it to waste the accumulator charge when its purpose is to prevent situations where the accumulator is empty. So, the voltmeter works only when the button is pushed.

Having completed the design, I rendered the model with the Solidworks visualization package. Everything seems to fit perfectly.

A Development Crossroads

Now that the design was done, I Cemented Carbide Inserts had a few options.

Firstly, I could just trust my skills and order the injection molding forms to be done. Now, if you are not acquainted with injection molding, let me oblige. It is a plastic forming process, where you spray molten plastic under high pressure into a steel press-form. Since the form is very precise and has the good surface finish, made of durable steel, you can get a large amount of identical high-quality parts made very fast.

However, bringing changes into the design at this stage is a very bad idea. Worst case scenario, you will have to remake the press-form. Now, for your understanding, press-forms are usually made of high-grade steel. The pattern if the part is machined on a CNC milling center to a very close tolerance and a very fine surface finish ( The last operation often involves polishing). Due to that, press-forms cost at least 800$ a piece minimum. There are lots of prototyping shops, where you can get those things done fast and good.

This choice comes down to: if you did everything correctly, that’s it, you are ready to sell. If you’ve made a mistake, you lose several thousand and a lot of time.

A Safer Path

The second path is to manufacture a prototype. There are quite a few methods of prototyping.

You can order the thing to be machined. Modern machine tools can be programmed to manufacture new parts quite fast. The precision and the surface finish is excellent but the method is on the more expensive side since programming requires trained professionals after all.

You can 3D-print your device. This is a very popular method of plastic prototyping right now. 3D-printing or additive manufacturing is a process where you slice the model of the part into cross-sections atop one on other. Then, you deposit and cure molten plastic layer by layer in accordance with the current cross-section of the part. As a result, you can get a high-quality part of any complexity in very short order. And the best thing, you don’t need any complex tools or professional manufacturing engineers. The process is mostly automatic.

So, I could spend some more time and get one or two versions of my device printed to see if it fits the actual slot in the car. That way, I’ll be sure that everything works. So, I’ll lose some money in prototyping for sure and will have to order the injection molds anyway. But I’ll lose only a few hundred, not a few thousands.

Prototyping

So, I decided to print my part after all. The plastic was chosen to be ABS, the most widespread in the market and quite cheap to make parts from. There are a lot of 3D-printing methods, but I decided to choose the simplest one: Fused Deposition Modeling. The plastic is deposited in the form of a thread and is laid in the form of the corresponding cross-section.

Allowing For Errors

So, after a few days, I got my prototype. It turned out that I had made the right choice because the device did not fit the port. Well, it did basically, but it had a setup at the backside, which got in the way. Apart from that, I got off by 5 mm in one area of the part so it didn’t fit the panel.

Well, if I had not chosen to get the injection molds done, I would’ve lost a lot of money but fortunately, that did not happen, so I corrected my mistakes and got the final working prototype. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be able to finish the product properly. This is why prototyping in product design is so useful.

We–Wayken with?prototyping and manufacturing technologies has many years experience in the field of?designing new and innovative products, which can greatly reduce the produce time from concept to production. Besides, our own?Prototype Engineers and Project Managers? with extensive bckgrounds?in industrial design prototyping. Therefore, help you to produce high-quality product design prototype on time is not a dream.

The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/product/hunan-estool-use-for-surface-milling-and-shoulder-milling-lathe-cutting-tools-milling-inserts-sdmt1205/

Think “radical automation.” In 2018, I believe these two words capture the aim and the mind-set many shops will need to bring to the International Manufacturing TNMG Insert Technology Show (IMTS). The value of the event is not just in evaluating technology for today’s pressing needs but also discovering the ideas that will be at the heart of meeting a shop’s needs five to eight years from now. And across that window of time, one of those needs is almost certain to be delivering more output using the same or fewer skilled employees.

Our industry has been talking about the “shortage” of skilled employees with the same urgency for almost 10 years now. We’ve been talking about it since the start of the rebound from the Great Recession, and efforts in this area have shown success: CNC programs in community colleges are now far more popular than they once were. Yet even these gains are not enough to keep up as older employees retire and manufacturing activity Carbide Turning Inserts continues to advance. We might have to accept that we will never have enough skilled manufacturing employees in the labor pool to keep pace with expanding processes that continue to assume today’s ratio of people to production. Therefore, it is time to change those processes, and it is time to change the ratio.

This gets to why I placed the word “shortage” in quotation marks. The so-called shortage of skilled employees exists only because of today’s assumptions and requirements as to how much staff is needed to deliver a given output. For any particular shop, I do not know what the elements will be of the future process that will enable that shop to change its staffing assumptions and requirements, but I do believe the core technologies are already out there to be found.

That’s why, when I speak of radical automation, I mean it in two ways. One is a radically greater commitment to automation than the team in your facility might have ever imagined seeing. The other is a radically expanded sense of what automation might include. It will probably include robots, yet robots alone likely are not enough. What else can omit significant labor? Multitasking is potentially automation. Additive manufacturing is automation, too, offering the chance to avoid the labor-intensive step of assembly. A more extensive commitment to CNC machining is also automation if it reduces the reliance on a near-net-shape process such as casting. And trying to figure out the possibilities of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) offers avenues to automation yet to be explored.

All this will take time. Much of the work of getting from today’s point A to tomorrow’s point B will proceed slowly and will seem unproductive because it will consist of gathering important facts, challenging limited thinking and formulating a strategy to realize a new vision for production that is sufficiently big enough to meet the scope of opportunity your shop faces. So the time to begin is soon, and perhaps the perfect place to begin is this fall’s event in Chicago. In your pursuit of radical automation, let the first step be a radical rethinking of your goals for IMTS.

The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/product/cemented-carbide-blades-lathe-cutting-for-steel-cnc-triangular-turning-tool-inserts/

3D printed molds for injection molding are becoming increasingly popular in the manufacturing industry. It is a great Cutting Inserts addition to the injection molding process portfolio and offers a competitive alternative to traditional injection mold materials.

In this article, we will dive into what a 3D printed injection mold is and its types, benefits, and limitations. In the end, we also share some helpful tips and tricks for mold designers and engineers. Let’s begin!

What is an Injection Mold?

Injection molds are arguably the most important component in injection molding setups. The mold is a multi-part assembly with a cavity inside it that is an exact replica of the product’s final geometry.

An injection system pumps molten raw material into this cavity, where it cools down to take its final form. Afterward, an injection mechanism, which is also inside the mold, then APMT Insert ejects the final part. Hence, the injection mold serves the primary purpose of giving the part its shape and also ejecting it.

There are numerous properties that a high-quality injection mold must possess. It must have good thermal stability to minimize thermal expansion, high strength to bear the clamping pressures, and good wear resistance for durability.

3D Printing Mold vs. Aluminum Mold

Conventionally, aluminum has been the standard material choice for manufacturing low-to-medium volume production injection molds. However, 3D printed molds for injection molding are rapidly gaining traction owing to numerous benefits like cost-saving and design flexibility.

The main difference between a 3D printed mold and an aluminum mold is how they are made. The primary manufacturing process for aluminum molds is CNC machining. 3D printed molds, on the other hand, are made from 3D printing, of course.

It may seem like a trivial difference but it is, in fact, quite significant and calls for a discussion on 3D printing mold vs. aluminum mold.

However, first, let’s go over the two main types of 3D printed injection molds.

Metal Frame Reinforced Mold

This type of injection mold borrows elements from both aluminum molds and 3D printed molds. The basic internal structure including the cavity and channels is 3D printed. This 3D print is then fit inside an aluminum structure for better stability and durability.

The aluminum frame reinforcement allows for higher molding pressures and prolongs the mold’s life. Engineers can also easily replace the 3D printed mold components in case of design changes or wear and tear.

Standalone Molds

Standalone molds are made entirely by 3D printing. As 3D printing is getting more robust very quickly, standalone 3D printing mold is gaining popularity in the injection molding industry.

A major advantage of standalone molds is that engineers get additional design flexibility for features like injection channels, gates, etc.

Benefits of 3D Printed Injection Molds

3D printed molds for injection molding enjoy numerous benefits over their metallic counterparts. We will highlight some of the main advantages of using a 3D printed mold.

Cost-Effective

It is no secret that cost management is a big part of efficient manufacturing. A 3D printed mold is significantly cheaper than metal molds.

CNC machine tools are oftentimes expensive and require costly maintenance. 3D printers, on the other hand, are cheaper machines and easy to maintain. The cost of 3D printing raw materials is also lower than injection molding metals.

Labor costs also differ for both methods. CNC machines are complex equipment and require a qualified machinist to operate them. 3D printers, although not a walk in the park, are still more accessible to a wider group of technicians.

Time-Saving

Another important aspect of high manufacturing productivity is time management. A major advantage of using a 3D printed mold vs. aluminum mold is the remarkable time saving during the mold making process.

CNC machining is a time-intensive process, sometimes taking up to a week to fully manufacture a complicated injection mold. The 3D printing process is much quicker and has fewer steps than machining. The average mold-making time is in the order of a few hours, giving 3D printed molds an obvious edge.

Design Flexibility

3D printing is known for its rapid prototyping capability. It is quick, cheap, and allows engineers to test various design iterations.

The same logic extends to 3D printing molds for injection molding. Mold designers can quickly eradicate any mistake or kinks in the mold design. Moreover, it is also very convenient to incorporate product improvements into the manufacturing line – all it takes is a simple reprint.

This kind of design freedom is not affordable with CNC machining, where even a single production is heavy on the budget.

Suitable for Low Volume Injection Molding

3D printed molds are well-suited to low-volume production initiatives. As we will discuss shortly, although they possess remarkable mechanical properties, they tend to wear more quickly than their metallic counterparts over time.

This makes them ideal for production runs where a small-to-medium number of parts are manufactured. In such setups, investing in an expensive metal mold is inefficient as the mold remains under-utilized at the end of the production run.

Moreover, low-volume production, on average, is more about product development and testing. The design can change midway through production if an update is required or a mistake is found. In this scenario, a 3D printing mold is ideal as updating is both cost-effective and time-saving.

Limitations of 3D Printed Injection Molds

Pros and cons go hand in hand. Therefore, this discussion will be incomplete if we ignore the drawbacks of a 3D printing injection mold.

Low Structural Integrity

3D printing is progressing very fast but it still lags behind conventional manufacturing processes like CNC machining in some aspects. It has several inherent quality issues like porosity and lack of bonding that decrease the structural integrity of 3D printed molds for injection molding.

Generally, a 3D printed mold has lower strength, hardness, and wear resistance (hence, the need for aluminum reinforcements). They tend to fail under extreme temperatures and pressures, which are sometimes necessary to achieve high-quality injection molding products.

As a result, in some cases, 3D printed molds are not a suitable substitute for cast/forged aluminum molds.

Surface Wear

3D printed molds for injection molding are not as wear-resistant as metal molds. Their surface quality deteriorates quicker than aluminum under the high temperatures and pressures of injection molding. This translates to the product’s surface as well.

In addition to this, 3D printing molds is a layer-by-layer manufacturing process. Due to this, 3D printed injection molds have a wavy surface pattern (also known as the stair-stepping effect) that increases the surface roughness of injection molding parts.

A common solution is to use surface finishing methods like filing, grinding, or chemical treatment to improve the mold’s surface quality. However, it is a challenge to perform these operations on a small mold with complex geometry, which is quite often the case with 3D printed molds.

Long Production Cycle

The cooling time comprises a big chunk of the injection molding production cycle. Since metals generally have higher thermal conductivity than the plastic materials used for 3D printed molds, it takes longer for the molten raw material to solidify when inside a 3D printed mold vs. aluminum mold.

Owing to this, we advise mold engineers to calculate the expected cooling time for their injection mold designs before deciding on the manufacturing process.

Shrinkage and Warping

Shrinkage and warping are two common 3D printing defects affecting the quality of a 3D printed injection mold. Plastics are very sensitive to heat and are prone to deforming (warping) during injection molding.

As the mold itself deforms, the shape of its cavity changes, affecting the final dimensions of the part.

In most cases, mold designers are able to mitigate this issue by incorporating appropriate shrinkage allowances in their molds. However, in the case of 3D printed molds, these allowances are hard to predict due to the non-uniform behavior of 3D printed structures.

Tips & Tricks for 3D Printed Injection Molds

We hope the above information on 3D printed injection molds for injection molding has added to your knowledge on the subject.

In this section, we will share some useful tips and tricks from our design experts that will help you improve your mold designing skills.

Improve Thermal Conductivity with Composition Materials

High thermal conductivity improves cooling time in injection molding. Several conductivity-boosting additives are available in the market like graphene, boron nitride, metallic fillers (copper powder, aluminum flakes), etc.

Surface Coating

Poor wear resistance is a major drawback of 3D printing molds. Appropriate surface coatings like metal or ceramics are quite useful in enhancing the surface properties of 3D printed injection molds.

Avoid Support Structures on Critical Internal Faces

Most 3D printing techniques use support structures to uphold the part during printing. They leave a mark on the part after the finishing technician removes them. Take care not to have any of these support structures on faces that form the cavity of the mold as their leftover marks will appear on the part as well.

Decrease Layer Thickness and Printing Speed for Better Surface Finish

The surface finish of a 3D printed mold depends on the layer thickness and printing speed parameters of the 3D printer. Keep these settings low to get a finer 3d printing surface finish.

Draft Angles are Slightly Higher than Aluminum Molds

3D printed structures require higher draft angles in the mold owing to their different material properties. Experts suggest including an average draft angle of 3° for the vertical faces of the injection mold.

Ventilation is Key

Air pockets tend to develop inside mold cavities and decrease surface quality. It is good to have shallow air vents slightly below the cavity surface to avoid this problem.

3D Printing Methods and Materials to Manufacture Molds

In this last section, We briefly introduce some 3D printing techniques and materials suitable for 3D printing mold.

Common 3D Printing Methods

• Stereolithography (SLA)
• Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)
• Material Jetting
• Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

Common 3D Printing Materials

• ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene)
• PETG (Polyethylene Terephthalate)
• PP (Polypropylene)
• Nylon
• Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPE)

Conclusion

This concludes our discussion on the interesting topic of 3D printed molds for injection molding. 3D printed molds are an emerging alternative to aluminum molds that offer benefits like cost- and time-saving, and design flexibility, and are great for low-volume production.

Some of their cons include low structural integrity and wear resistance when compared with metal molds, but there are specialized solutions to eradicate these issues.

Are you looking for a fast mold maker for your injection molding project? WayKen offers rapid tooling and injection molding services with strict quality control. Our advanced tooling mold and 3d printing technologies provide unparalleled accuracy and cost-effectiveness in product construction. Just contact us today, and you will get a quote and design for manufacturing analysis.

FAQs

How expensive are 3D printed molds vs. metal molds?

3D printing molds are relatively inexpensive compared to metal molds. Typically, a 3D printing mold costs under $200. A metallic mold is easily $5,000+. For a low volume setup, 3D printed molds are a clear choice.

Which common 3D printing is best for injection molds?

Comparing only FDM, SLS, and SLA, we suggest using SLA for producing injection molds. SLA products are robust, smooth, and precise. FDM molds face demolding issue and are not as smooth as SLA molds. Similar issues are commonly reported for SLS products.

How to improve the cooling time of a 3D printed injection mold?

3D printed molds do not cool down as quickly as metal molds due to their low thermal conductivity. A good tip is to use compressed air to increase convective heat transfer or you may use interchangeable stacks.

The Carbide Inserts Website: https://www.estoolcarbide.com/product/vbmt-steel-inserts-cnc-lathe-turning-p-1205/