Low budget startup acquiring complex shaped materials
- posted by: Johan Sundman on 2016-12-02
- tagged:
product, budget
- score: 2
How would a company with a relatively low budget go about producing parts? Simple shapes such as pipes, square tubes etc can easily be bought for a low price, but when it comes for more complex shapes in different materials how should one go about producing them. For example i’m going to need a few complex pieces of plastic with a glossy finish. What would be the best way for me to aquire this? Here are some ideas..
- Buy or rent a high quality 3d printer to print the parts, sand them down and then coat them with something.
- Buy a 3d printed mold in the desired shape from a company selling such servies and then pour in plastic with a lower melting point than that of the mold.
- I was going to write something here but i’m clueless..
Answer 11627
- posted by: SRDC on 2016-12-02
- score: 2
For producing plastic parts, you have several options:
- CNC machining (good for precision, low volume, higher cost)
- Casting (like out of polyurethane - can be DIY) - the mold would typically be CNC machined, but there are other options depending on your requirements
- Injection molding (out of many different plastics, typically expensive mold and equipment. Some places like ProtoMold specialize in building molds for and producing prototype quantities and are 'cheap' - but the mold is still typically over $1000)
- Thermoforming - depending on your tolerances and material requirements, you can make a mold and then heat a sheet of thermoplastic and form it over the mold
- 3D printing - typically good for prototyping and very small test runs - there are 2 'branches' of 3D printing:
- consumer / desktop - you can get a decent printer as low as $500 that prints a string of plastic around and around in layers until it builds up the part (e.g. the DaVinci or MakerBot). This is slow, and gives the characteristic 'layered' look. Somewhat more expensive are the models that use light-cured resins. These models are very 'slick' but somewhat more fragile and don't age as well but are better for 'pretty prints.' If you don't want to buy / learn one, but are happy with that level of quality, there are usually people in your area with a 3D printer they'd be happy to do prints for you for a fee. If you don't know anybody, you can find them on places like MakeXYZ or 3D Hubs.
- professional level - higher-end models from places like 3D Systems and Stratasys typically cost $10k+ and give much 'better' results. These are typically beyond the range of most prototyping startups / entrepreneurs but can be accessed through various service bureaus. Both 3D Systems and Stratasys have their own professional 3D printing service bureaus, as well as ProtoLabs (same as ProtoMold), Shapeway, etc. Some are geared more towards 'engineering-type' prints while others are geared more towards 'consumer-type' prints.
Hope this helps!
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.