Rapid Tooling
We offer a high quality, in-house tool shop for extremely fast turnaround. We utilize a global supplier network comprised of both domestic and overseas tooling solutions. Our tool shop employs a paperless system to support design, program, and construct your injection mold. Elimold is fully equipped with a tooling production and repair shop.
Rapid Injection Molding & Tooling Services
If you’re injection molding parts in quantities of 1,000 to 5,000 pieces, we recommend using rapid tooling to cut mold design and production time in half. This way, you achieve the perfect balance between cost and time to market.
Elimold is a leading provider of rapid injection molding and rapid tooling services using a variety of technologies including prototype/bridge injection molding and tooling and short run/production injection molding and tooling. Rapid injection molding and rapid prototyping combine 3D additive manufacturing technology with traditional molding concepts to produce tools or molds from CAD models, often faster and at a lower cost than molds machined using traditional methods.
All of our customer-facing staff are fully trained or have many years of experience in plastic manufacturing, so we always have good advice for you. We can advise on the choice of materials and the impact of a specific design on the manufacturing process, and we can even suggest best practice design details to minimize production and material costs.
Our Rpaid Tooling Process
DFM and Mold Flow Analysis
After project planning is finished, we will start DFM and send it to customer for approval.
DFM include the basic data, injection method, molding parting line analysis, draft analysis, wall thickness analysis, design improvement suggestion and so on. We can also provide Mold Flow Analysis if customers require.
Tool Design and Tool Making
After DFM is approved by customer, we will start tool design and tool making. During the took making, we will send our tool make gantt chart to our customer with tool making schedule detail and keep customer posted with tool making status.
Mold Trial
After mold trial, we will inspect the first off samples and send it to customer for approval. For every project, there is an assigned PM to communicate directly with the customers.
What is the advantages of rapid tooling?
- Reduce 40~50% cost compared with the traditional mold.
- Reduce 40~60% lead time compared with the traditional mold.
- The mold can be available for various of surface finish, such as: Texturing, Polishing, Sand blasting, etc.
- Soft steel make it easier to modify the tooling if the product design need to be changed.
- The mold can be made as family mold, so it can reduce the production lead time and keep the color consistency of the products.
- Rapid tooling is a good testing solution prior to huge volume production mold.
Machining Methods Used For Our Rapid Tooling Services
CNC Machining
We offer accurate CNC machined parts to convert your proposed design/concept into a real object within a short timeframe from 1 to 500+ offs. Our CNC machining services include milling, turning, wire cutting, laser cutting, EDM, laser carving, and more.
Vacuum Casting
Vacuum casting involves the use of a master prototype to make a silicone mold and then pouring the material into the silicone mold. We offer fast turnaround, cost-efficient vacuum cast parts to convert your design/concept from 1 to 100+ offs.
3D Printing
3D printing is the quickest and most reasonable option for rapid tooling. We offer a total of six different 3d printing technologies for rapid prototyping, from low-cost & extremely fast technologies to technologies better suited for functional testing.
Why use 3D printing for rapid tooling?
Identify potential for improvement and optimize processes.Tool making with ablative or forming technologies, such as milling or CNC turning, is subject to process-related limitations. Cooling channels created in injection-molded tools using machining technologies, for example, can be added to the material only in straight lines. The more complex a component’s geometry, the more difficult it is to maintain precise cooling along the contour of the tool. This can make the conventional production of sophisticated components extremely laborious and cost-intensive. Compared to traditional processes, additive manufacturing delivers a significant time saving and offers cost-effectiveness regardless of shape. Because each 3D-printed component is manufactured directly from CAD data, no additional tools are needed. This saves on labor and reduces the risk of errors in production.
Rapid Tooling Service for 3D Printing
Want to take advantage of rapid tooling? We will produce your tools and tool inserts on the Elimold within just a few days of receiving your order. Choose from six different 3D printing processes and over 30 materials to design your custom component.
- Selective Laser Melting
- Selective Laser Sintering
- Multi Jet Fusion
- Stereolithography
- PolyJet/MultiJet modeling
- Lithography-Based Ceramic Manufacturing
Most Common Materials Used
- ABS
- ABS/PC
- Acetal
- Acetal Copolymer
- Acetal Homopolymer/Delrin
- ETPU
- HDPE
- LCP
- LDPE
- LLDPE
- Nylon
- PBT
- PC/PBT
- PEEK
- PEI
- PET
- PETG
- PMMA (Acrylic, Plexiglas)
- Polycarbonate
- Polypropylene
- PPA
- PPE/PS
- PS
- PSU
- TPU
- Standard silicone (30, 40, 50, 60, and 70 durometers)
- Medical-grade silicone
- Optical-grade silicone
- Fluorosilicone (fuel and oil resistant)
Finishing
We can make surface finishes for the moldings according to the classification system of the Plastics Industry Association using their general surface finishing guidelines. Our finishing options include:
- Painting
- High gloss polishing
- Tinted surface
- Anodized surface
- Chromed and metalized
- surface
- Sanding
- Symbolizing
- Blasting
- Customized
Industry Application
Rapid Tolling services by us have a large variety of applications across all industries, including:
- Automotive
- Consumer Products
- Electronics
- Medical and Dental
- Aerospace
- Industrial
Contact Elimold for Rapid Injection Molding & Rapid Tooling Services
Let us help you provide high quality parts in short time. Get your project started now!