Direct Manufacturing Solutions for the Supporting Parts You Need
Depending on the tool and part material, the tool life of 3D-printed products can range from 100 to 1,000 parts for prototyping and short-run manufacturing needs.
Besides reducing the costs of producing prototypes for plastic process tooling with 3D printing, custom plastic molds of enhanced surface quality, durability, build speed and lower costs can also be achieved.
Applications
Tooling For Injection Molding
Build prototypes for injection molds in-house at a faster and more affordable manner with Stratasys PolyJet 3D printing technology. As injection molding requires operating conditions of intense pressure, PolyJet materials such as Digital ABS are resilient enough to withstand mold runs up to 100 parts.
Additionally, alter your mold design by editing your 3D CAD file, and your newly 3D-printed design is ready for testing in just a matter of hours. In terms of advantage, high-speed production means discovering geometric and material flaws early where they are easiest to fix and gain time for increased product development.
Tooling for Blow Molding
With Stratasys-patented PolyJet and FDM technologies, take charge in designing and building prototype molds of near-production quality without worrying about long lead times. This will help your business to achieve reduced product development cycles by 30 to 70%, and lower prototype mold costs by 40 to 80%.
3D printing not only saves time and money in development cycles for building blow-molds, as molds created by Stratasys 3D Printers have guaranteed properties of thermal resistance and durability even after hundreds of manufacturing cycles.
Tooling for Thermoforming
Alleviate the concerns of cost in milling machine operations for tool preparation. With 3D printing as an alternative solution, tool construction can be done upon completion of 3D CAD file design preparations.
With functions of automated operations, there is no need for additional fixtures, setup, and operation of CNC machines, as well as erroneous labors in manual drilling. FDM and PolyJet technology is able to print vent holes into the mold, and additionally build molds with porous structures for finely distributed vacuum draw.
