Used in all types of industries, plastics provide versatility and strength across a wide range of applications, from automotive body parts to human body parts. Each application requires a unique manufacturing process that can mold the part based on specifications.
Thermoforming is the process of forming a heated plastic sheet to the surface of either a male or female mold. This is a single-sided plastic fabrication process, unlike injection molding; only one side of the plastic sheet is controlled by the mold or tool. Vacuum forming and pressure forming are both popular styles of thermoforming.
Depending on a project’s needs, thermoforming can offer several distinct advantages, including:
Thermoforming is ideal for smaller production quantities (250 to 3000 parts per year).
Tooling for thermoforming is less expensive than injection molding. Molds for thermoforming are often made of inexpensive aluminum. In contrast, injection molds are typically composed of thicker aluminum, steel, or other heavier alloys to withstand higher pressures and enable continuous reuse over larger production runs. In addition, thermoforming uses only a single-sided tool rather than a double-sided injection mold. This results in virtually half the material usage for mold-making, which significantly reduces the up-front cost of thermoforming. However, the molds are less durable and cannot be used for large scale or repeat production.
The size of the component plays a significant role in thermoforming's cost-effectiveness compared with injection molding. The larger the component, the wider the gap between tooling costs. Thermoforming becomes increasingly cost-effective as the part increases in size.
Due to the speed with which thermoforming molds can be produced, thermoforming is much faster than injection molding when it comes to product development and prototype testing. Injection mold tooling is more time-consuming, as the molds are double-sided and composed of harder materials such as steel. Comparatively, thermoform molds are easier to design, fabricate, and modify, making them ideal for development and testing.
Thermoforming offers a variety of benefits for product design and branding. Bright colors can be incorporated into thermoformed plastics, facilitating vivid, durable coloring throughout the material. In addition, thermoform materials accept painting, silk screening, printing, stenciling, and coatings that provide unique designs, textures, and finishes to enhance the appearance and the longevity of the product.
Since thermoforming uses a simple single-sided mold made from highly formable materials, thermoform designs can be modified quickly and with minimal cost. Injection molding, on the other hand, requires dual molds with heavier materials that are more time-consuming and expensive to tool.
The lower costs, versatility, and adaptability of thermoforming make it ideal for many applications, including:
Plastic injection molding offers several distinct advantages of its own, including:
Plastic injection molding is ideal for large-volume orders and mass production in projects requiring thousands or even millions of the same part.
One of the primary benefits of injection molding is the ability to create extraordinarily complex components with an exceptional degree of detail. The high pressure used in the injection molding process allows the production of intricate components and unusual geometries, as material is forced firmly into even the smallest detailed cavities. Multi-cavity mold options allow the injection molding process to be further tailored to meet specific needs.
Injection molding involves the use of durable and reusable molds for repeated runs. Users may rely upon the mold to provide highly accurate, repeatable results for large production runs over many years. The process is particularly useful for extremely small, complex, and intricate components that are time-consuming or difficult to create using thermoforming, cutting, milling, and other fabrication methods.
Although injection molding is more expensive than thermoforming, the mold design and manufacturing process may be modified in various ways to reduce overall production costs. Simplifying and streamlining the design can reduce some of the cost that goes into creating detailed molds. In addition, employing material reduction methods such as undercutting and coring, or simply modifying molds from a similar product may offer means to affordably meet the needs of a new project.
Injection molding is a highly efficient process with extremely low scrap rates. The amount of material for each component is precisely measured to ensure that the mold is completely filled, ultimately generating little overflow or waste. An injection molded product can be molded to scale and requires little additional tooling after it is ejected from the mold.
Applications that benefit from injection molding include:
What you need to know before selecting a molder for your project
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The Rodon Group is proud to be an industry-leading plastic injection molder. ISO 9001:2015-certified with a fully equipped, 125,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, we specialize in custom, high-volume injection molding projects.
From initial design, custom tooling, and mold building to value-added services and just-in-time shipping, our complete turnkey services ensure that you receive the highest quality services for the best possible price.
To learn more about high-volume plastic injection molding and how it can benefit your next project, download our free eBook, “An Introduction to Plastic Injection Molding.”