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Guide to Low-Volume Injection Molding

While injection molding is traditionally considered a manufacturing process only for mass production due to its high tooling costs, leveraging 3D printing to fabricate injection molds can empower you to use this process to produce high-quality and repeatable parts for prototyping and low-volume production.Get more news about Low Volume Plastic Injection Molding,you can vist our website!

In this comprehensive guide, learn how you can use 3D printed injection molds with both benchtop and industrial machines to efficiently and affordably produce hundreds of functional prototypes and parts that accelerate product development, reduce costs and lead times, and bring better products to market.
Injection molding is one of the leading processes for manufacturing plastics. It is a cost-effective and extremely repeatable technology that yields high-quality parts for large series production. As a result, it is widely used for mass-producing identical parts with tight tolerances.

Injection molding is a fast, intensive process where high heat and pressure are involved to inject molten material inside a mold. The molten material depends on the scope of the manufacturing project. The most popular materials are various thermoplastics, such as ABS, PS, PE, PC, PP, or TPU, but metals and ceramics can be injection molded as well. The mold consists of a cavity that accommodates the injected molten material and is designed to closely mirror the final features of a part.

The molds are traditionally made out of metal by CNC machining or electric discharge machining (EDM). These are expensive industrial methods that require specialized equipment, high-end software, and skilled labor. As a result, the production of a metal mold typically takes four to eight weeks and costs anywhere from $2,000 to $100,000+ depending on the shape and the complexity of the part. For smaller part quantities, the cost, time, specialized equipment, and skilled labor required to fabricate the mold out of common tooling metals and manufacturing methods often makes injection molding at this scale unobtainable. However, there are alternatives to machining molds out of metal. Leveraging in-house 3D printing to fabricate injection molds for prototyping and low-volume production significantly reduces cost and time compared to metal molds, while still producing high-quality and repeatable parts.
Desktop 3D printing is a powerful solution to fabricate injection molds rapidly and at a low cost. It requires very limited equipment, saving CNC time and skilled operators for other high-value tasks in the meantime. Manufacturers can benefit from the speed and flexibility of in-house 3D printing to create the mold and couple it with the production force of injection molding to deliver a series of units from common thermoplastics in a matter of days. They can even achieve complicated mold shapes that would be difficult to manufacture traditionally and can be used on both desktop and industrial molding machines, enabling development teams to be more innovative. Furthermore, product development benefits from the ability to iterate on the design and test the end-use material before investing in hard tooling.

Even though 3D printing molds can offer these advantages when used appropriately, there are still some limitations to be aware of. We should not expect the same performance from a 3D printing polymer mold as from a machined metallic one. Critical dimensions are harder to meet, cooling time is longer because the thermal transfer occurs slower in plastic, and printed molds can more easily break under heat and pressure. However, companies across the industry are continuing to implement 3D printed molds into their short-run injection molding workflows, enabling them to quickly produce hundreds to thousands of parts. From designing functional prototypes with end-use materials, fabricating parts during pilot production, or manufacturing low-volume or custom end-use parts, 3D printing injection molds is a cost-effective and quick way to produce parts in limited quantities.