Designing a Plastic Part

 

          The final section of this software is actually designing the plastic part.  There are many guidelines and conventions to follow.  There is a design section for each manufacturing process, although the majority of the information is in injection molding.  Injection molding is, by far, the most popular manufacturing method for plastic.  Although up-front costs can be quite high, injection molding can make parts extremely quickly, and very inexpensively. 

 

          Listed below are links to the design sections for each process.  As you can see, injection molding has the most sections.  Review each section and make sure your part is designed to the guidelines.  Correctly designing your part will help smooth out its transition to manufacturing.  It will be cheaper and easier to make.

 

Injection Molding

      Types of Molds

      Wall Thickness

      Draft

      Ribs

      Radii

      Undercuts

      Living Hinges

      Screw Bosses

      Snap Fits

         Types 

         Calculations

 

Blow Molding

      General Guidelines

      Blow Ratio

 

Thermoforming

      General Guidelines

      Inserts

      Draw Ratio & Area Ratio

 

Extrusion

      General Guidelines

 

Rotational Molding

      General Guidelines

 

Casting

 

Compression / Transfer Molding (Thermoset)

      General Guidelines

 

Injection Molding (Thermoset)

      General Guidelines