Injection molded parts are accurate, lightweight, inexpensive, and able to be mass produced. If your product can sustain high volumes, we can produce part designs ready to go to the mold shop. We can also perform a preliminary fill simulation to check fill times, part quality, weld locations, cycle time, and more. We've worked with product startups and small businesses to develop attractive and efficient injection molded products and enclosures - we can help you get to market fast, and for less.
The first step in any successful injection molded part design project is to establish requirements. What's it going to look like? What materials, colours, and textures should be used? What environment will the part be in, and what are the strength requirements? We'll also work with you to balance part complexity with the number of parts in a plastic assembly to optimize tooling costs and part performance before we get into detailed design.
We take your requirements and develop a 3D model of the plastic parts, an exact representation of the final product. Part features specific to injection molding are carefully considered: draft angles, parting planes, consistent wall thickness, avoidance of undercuts, ejector pin locations, screw bosses, alignment features, snaps, etc. Photorealistic renders or animations can be provided so you can see exactly what the product will look like before spending time and money on tooling or prototyping. Once you approve the design, we then use the model to complete 2D drawings of the parts, detailing critical tolerances and finishes.
Using Autodesk Moldflow, we analyze the ability of the part to fill properly. We check fill times, projected part quality, weld locations, and cycle time. We can determine ideal gate locations, and look at the effect of cooling channels and filling multiple parts in a mold.
Using industrial MultiJet 3D printers, we can provide a nearly 1-to-1 prototype for your newly designed injection molded parts. Test fit, function, and appearance before investing in production tooling. Once you're ready for production, we work with the injection molders to help them produce optimized molds, and soon you're making thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of parts.
We use the Autodesk Product Design & Manufacturing Collection for all our design work, giving us access to the latest plastic part design software. We can quickly create concept mockups of plastic parts to view in 3D, explore design iterations, and then take care of the details.
Along the way, you'll get regular updates with interactive online design reviews, where you can see the design in your browser as it progresses.
Autodesk Moldflow gives us the ability to analyze the manufacturability of your part design as we go. We can estimate shrinkage, weld lines, temperature gradients, fill quality, warping, and more to eliminate issues before tooling is ordered.
