Injection molding is a manufacturing technique used to mass-produce identical plastic parts with good tolerances. In injection molding, polymer particles are first melted and then injected under pressure into a mold where the liquid plastic cools and solidifies. Materials used in injection molding are thermoplastic polymers that can be colored or filled with other additives. Almost all plastic parts around you are made using injection molding: from automotive parts to electronic housings to kitchen utensils. The reason why injection molding is so popular is because of the extremely low cost per unit in high volume production.
Rapid Injection Molding is exactly what the name suggests, but multiplied by a factor of 10! It's hard to imagine anyone offering a service that guarantees a fully functional injection mold in a day or two, but it does. That's what rapid injection molding is all about. Made from high-grade aluminum, these molds can produce anywhere from a few parts to thousands. Injection mold making is usually quite slow because the mold making process is very complex. Produce high-quality custom plastic prototype parts even after hundreds of thousands of cycles. People were very skeptical at first, but after a few years of making injection-molded prototypes, this has become the norm.
Rapid injection molding works by automating the mold making process as much as possible. By 3D models of customers and automating the design and manufacture of molds, lead times are reduced to a fraction of traditional processes, including stereolithography prototyping. One of the core parts of the automated process lies in the design of the plastic parts. Many features, such as undercuts, can be minimized or eliminated by working with a knowledgeable designer.
Part draft angles and radii, ejection, use of straight pulls whenever possible, simple methods of assisting operations, CNC milling processes, part size limits, part draft angles and radii. The Advantages of Rapid Injection Molding: A way to bridge the time gap between prototype and full production. If you need a working injection mold right now, this is the answer. Short-run production to get your product to market immediately. Provide engineers with a working model to enable full design of production tools.