5 Top tips when designing for Plastic Injection Moulding
Plastic injection moulding is one of the most commonly used processes of manufacturing plastic parts. Due to its versatility, plastic injection moulding is chosen for many types of products, however certain design aspects can still get overlooked. We’ve therefore produced 5 top tips for when it comes to designing! – In no particular order:
Different wall thicknesses can determine the difficulty of the process. This is due to the cooling process, thicker wall areas will cool and solidify slower than thin areas. You should manage the potential problem by designing the part with manufacturability in mind.
It’s important to remember that material selection is very important when designing your product, it factors into many aspects of the process, including shrinkage factor, cooling time, flexibility and more. Depending on the material there can be different minimum and maximum wall thickness. To learn more click here.
- Prototype often and early
We have an added value service known as the ‘innovation filter’ this is where we identify areas of improvement, however on top of this we recommend using 3d printing to help prototype your part. Early testing can help eliminate areas of concern later on in the plastic injection moulding process.
You can incorporate your desired finish, pattern or texture right into the mould. This saves you from having to add a second finish process after the plastic injection moulding process has been complete. This will help you save time and money.
It’s important to understand the process so you can identify areas of optimisation at each stage of the plastic injection moulding process. To help you understand the process we’ve created a whole section for explaining the plastic injection moulding process which you can find here.
Please read our blog, News & Views for useful articles, tips and tricks on plastic injection moulding, as well as guest blogs from some of our customers.
Added: 30 Oct 2018 09:23
Back to News