7 ms·

"I then had detailed talks with an injection molding consultant. I was quoted around 50k for all the molding all up.." I think you can have an injection mold m

by pravda 12y ago

"I then had detailed talks with an injection molding consultant. I was quoted around 50k for all the molding all up.." I think you can have an injection mold made for a lot less in China. Maybe 5-10K? Anyone have accurate numbers?

DiThi 12y ago
I know of two occidental (well, european) hardware projects that failed because of injection mold outsorcing to China: OpenPandora and Vivali (KDE tablet). It seems that the only way you can manufacture such things very cheaply in China is living there.
- bsder 12y ago
  Exactly. If you are injecting a zillion parts and .1 cent matters, then China is great. If you don't have the volume to amortize all the pieces, screwups, and lost time, then China is a bust. However, one of the things that people miss here is that nobody here is actually talking a real volume (100K+ parts). Even if you can get the mold cheap, any competent injection molder is going to charge you an amount for NRE setup time that is going to make injecting 1,000 parts not particularly price competitive.
DINKDINK 12y ago
Mechanical Engineer here: 50k for injection molding complete setup is _very_ reasonable. Dies alone can cost 50k.
jacquesm 12y ago
Molds are extremely complex objects, amongst the most complex mechanical objects that I've worked with. The precision to which they are fabricated, the thermal management to allow for fast cycles and high numbers of product produced from the same mold are absolutely incredible. The principles are simple but moldmaking is an absolute art form and unless you've seen a moldmaker at work at a reasonably high end facility I don't think you should be throwing out price points and opinions. 50K is actually very much on the low end for mold making, of course everything depends on size, expected # of products, cycle speed. An sizeable edm produced mold of tungsten with copper laminate for heat management is going to be a lot more expensive than a small mold for a protoype run where speed and number of products are not critical.
- msandford 12y ago
  I agree that you're completely right for the kind of "consumer" scale injection molding. But they're talking about making perhaps only a few thousand parts. The number I saw was 2400 or so. For only 2400 parts (per YEAR!) you could make aluminum molds which are much, much cheaper. 2400 parts a year is 50 per week or one every three hours. Even if your cycle time was 10 minutes (which is an eternity even for old shoddy equipment) you can still make all the parts in 400 hours which is 2.5 weeks straight or 10 weeks of 9-5 production. There is a company in the US which will make simple molds for much less than $50k. For that you could get 5-10 molds and all the parts and possibly have money to spare. http://www.protolabs.com/protomold http://www.protolabs.com/protomold If you're talking about the kinds of molds necessary to do something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHwTHarf8Ck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHwTHarf8Ck then yes I agree $50k is a total joke. But for the batch of parts necessary to build a semi-successful production run for a 3d printer, $50k might be overkill.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Is there a description available of the parts that the quote refers to?
    - msandford 12y ago
      Not that I'm aware of, which makes everything we talk about highly speculative.
    - krschultz 12y ago
      I have used ProtoMold and they are very good. They are aluminum molds and there are fewer options with regards to custom details, but if you are making basic parts it works fine. I would think it would work very well for injection molding parts for a 3D printer because surface finish is probably not critical and the quantity will be relatively low. I generally think of the scaling up process as 3D printing -> ProtoMold -> steel molds. That said, when he said $50k in molds, I pictures $50k in ProtoMold molds, not $50k in steel molds. I imagine steel molds would be more on the order of $250k.
mfgthrowaway888 12y ago
yep, I had a very high quality set of molds made in China for $8k, and by allowing the manufacturer to hold onto possession of the molds, I only had to pay half ($4k). However, getting a price this good wasn't easy; my team is passionate about low-cost sourcing, we speak fluent Mandarin, and our parts are small compared to some of the large parts in a 3D printer. We even had to take things one step further and pretend our company was based in China. Due to the principal of Guanxi (Chinese business ethics where you treat family and friends very well but it's OK to cheat foreigners), Chinese companies will often charge 5x the domestic price if they think they're selling to a foreign buyer.
krschultz 12y ago
You can get molds in the US for $5k and molds in China for $5k, but that mold is going to be for a very simple part. It all comes down to the complexity of the shape. $50k sounds optimistic to me, and I have been involved in making physical products in the US & China.

by pravda 12y ago

DiThi 12y ago

I know of two occidental (well, european) hardware projects that failed because of injection mold outsorcing to China: OpenPandora and Vivali (KDE tablet). It seems that the only way you can manufacture such things very cheaply in China is living there.

bsder 12y ago
Exactly. If you are injecting a zillion parts and .1 cent matters, then China is great. If you don't have the volume to amortize all the pieces, screwups, and lost time, then China is a bust. However, one of the things that people miss here is that nobody here is actually talking a real volume (100K+ parts). Even if you can get the mold cheap, any competent injection molder is going to charge you an amount for NRE setup time that is going to make injecting 1,000 parts not particularly price competitive.

DINKDINK 12y ago

Mechanical Engineer here: 50k for injection molding complete setup is _very_ reasonable. Dies alone can cost 50k.

jacquesm 12y ago

Molds are extremely complex objects, amongst the most complex mechanical objects that I've worked with. The precision to which they are fabricated, the thermal management to allow for fast cycles and high numbers of product produced from the same mold are absolutely incredible. The principles are simple but moldmaking is an absolute art form and unless you've seen a moldmaker at work at a reasonably high end facility I don't think you should be throwing out price points and opinions. 50K is actually very much on the low end for mold making, of course everything depends on size, expected # of products, cycle speed. An sizeable edm produced mold of tungsten with copper laminate for heat management is going to be a lot more expensive than a small mold for a protoype run where speed and number of products are not critical.

msandford 12y ago
I agree that you're completely right for the kind of "consumer" scale injection molding. But they're talking about making perhaps only a few thousand parts. The number I saw was 2400 or so. For only 2400 parts (per YEAR!) you could make aluminum molds which are much, much cheaper. 2400 parts a year is 50 per week or one every three hours. Even if your cycle time was 10 minutes (which is an eternity even for old shoddy equipment) you can still make all the parts in 400 hours which is 2.5 weeks straight or 10 weeks of 9-5 production. There is a company in the US which will make simple molds for much less than $50k. For that you could get 5-10 molds and all the parts and possibly have money to spare. http://www.protolabs.com/protomold http://www.protolabs.com/protomold If you're talking about the kinds of molds necessary to do something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHwTHarf8Ck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHwTHarf8Ck then yes I agree $50k is a total joke. But for the batch of parts necessary to build a semi-successful production run for a 3d printer, $50k might be overkill.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Is there a description available of the parts that the quote refers to?
  - msandford 12y ago
    Not that I'm aware of, which makes everything we talk about highly speculative.
  - krschultz 12y ago
    I have used ProtoMold and they are very good. They are aluminum molds and there are fewer options with regards to custom details, but if you are making basic parts it works fine. I would think it would work very well for injection molding parts for a 3D printer because surface finish is probably not critical and the quantity will be relatively low. I generally think of the scaling up process as 3D printing -> ProtoMold -> steel molds. That said, when he said $50k in molds, I pictures $50k in ProtoMold molds, not $50k in steel molds. I imagine steel molds would be more on the order of $250k.

mfgthrowaway888 12y ago

yep, I had a very high quality set of molds made in China for $8k, and by allowing the manufacturer to hold onto possession of the molds, I only had to pay half ($4k). However, getting a price this good wasn't easy; my team is passionate about low-cost sourcing, we speak fluent Mandarin, and our parts are small compared to some of the large parts in a 3D printer. We even had to take things one step further and pretend our company was based in China. Due to the principal of Guanxi (Chinese business ethics where you treat family and friends very well but it's OK to cheat foreigners), Chinese companies will often charge 5x the domestic price if they think they're selling to a foreign buyer.

krschultz 12y ago

You can get molds in the US for $5k and molds in China for $5k, but that mold is going to be for a very simple part. It all comes down to the complexity of the shape. $50k sounds optimistic to me, and I have been involved in making physical products in the US & China.