Disadvantages of Injection Mold Parts

  • 1) High tooling costs and long set up lead times. Up-front costs are high due to the design, testing, and tooling required. There is the initial design and prototyping (probably via CNC or 3D printing), then the design of a prototype mould tool to produce replicas of the part in volume. Lastly, and only after extensive testing during both stages, you can finally injection mould a part.

    2) Part design restrictions. Plastic Mold parts must be designed with injection moulding consideration and must follow the basic rules of injection moulding, for example:

    Avoid under cuts and sharp edges as much as possible
    Use uniform wall thicknesses to prevent inconsistencies in the cooling process resulting in defects like sink marks.
    Draft angles are encouraged for better de-moulding.
    Don’t forget, because tools are typically made from steel or aluminium, it can be difficult to make design changes. If you need to add plastic to the part, you can make the tool cavity larger by cutting away steel or aluminium. But in order to take away plastic, you need to decrease the size of the tool cavity by adding aluminium or metal to it. This is extremely difficult and in many cases might mean scrapping the tool (or part of it) and starting over.

    Also, the weight and size of the part will determine the tool size and necessary press size. The larger the part, the more difficult and expensive it will be.

    3) Small runs of parts can be costly. Due to the complexity of tooling, and the necessity to rid the machine of all previous material before the next product can be made, the setup time can be quite lengthy. Therefore small runs of parts have traditionally always been thought of as too expensive to injection mould.

    If you want to purchase Positioning component, welcome to contact us!