Rapid tooling is a great option to help get your product to market faster but it is not always the best option to line up with your ultimate project goals.
Final production parts for this project would be injection molding. So it was important to choose a rapid manufacturing method that gave useful feedback on how final production parts would present (form, fit, function, look, feel…).
Vacuum casting is a good mimic of injection molded parts and delivered tolerances that matched the needs off this project. Vacuum casting simply ticked all the boxes for this particular project…cost, time line, quality.
We have many projects that go this way…vacuum casting first, then rapid injection molding, then production injection molding.
SERVICES: Vacuum Casting
QUANTITY: 28 sets (35 components per)
MATERIALS: P+600 (similar to ABS)
FINISHING: Smooth, direct from tool.
LEAD TIME: 8 days for first 5 sets. The rest 10 days after our client
confirmed test parts.
On a different project rapid tooling may have won out. There is no ‘best’ rapid manufacturing technology. But there are ‘correct’ options for individual projects.
