Various Types of Rapid Tooling that You Should Know About
Making of mold in a mechanical surface or plastic surface used to takes weeks or sometimes even months before rapid tooling was initiated. The engineers who were in any way involved in injection molding started testing on rapid tooling. Rapid tooling is a great way of molding in a plastic surface and forming a prototype of a product so that a large scale production in a factory could be started. Usually, cavities and side actions are built in a rapid tooling machine.
There are some types of processes available under rapid tooling use of which can depend on the kind of materials in use or the technology required. The three most used types of rapid tooling are mentioned below, have a look:
3D printing:
The use of 3D printing is increasing and the process is getting advanced daily. The process has been evolved to a level where the manufacturers have started using it in the production of prototypes of products. There are various benefits of using 3D printing in injection. For instance, the molds with this process are created very quickly. It takes only a few hours to get created. Creating molds in this way is not at all expensive especially when compared with metal molding. Moreover, any kind of surface or design can be created using computers.
Metal laser tooling:
Earlier, molds were created only using metal surfaces and the molds were created out of metal only. However, with an increase in science and technology, we can now use metal to create molds in plastic as well. This is done by fusing some metal particles in the form of solvent and converting it into any desirable mold. This process is known as sintering and is getting very popular these days. Metals like aluminum, cobalt, stainless steel, etc. can be used for the process. As the resulting is a metal, it can transfer heat properly and sustain the force.
Traditional machinery:
As has been mentioned, rapid tooling came after the traditional means of molding and several companies were using traditional methods for a long time. Finally, when rapid tooling came into existence, these companies had to increase their pace and production to compete with the growing competition. After a while, all the companies that created molds under the short term were referred to as rapid tooling companies even if they used some traditional methods.
There are some limitations of rapid tooling which most companies seem to ignore. The company has to make sure they are meeting the requirements before starting with the production. For instance, the material they choose for injection should be strong enough to handle the force of the machine. The mold that is created finally has to be smooth so that the plastic injection can be inserted quickly and easily. Therefore, to make molds under a short duration and correctly, the various types of rapid tooling methods mentioned above can be used while keeping their requirements in mind.
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