Silicone mold casting , also known as vacuum mold casting or hand mold casting , is a process that uses silicone molds to degas, mix, preheat and inject casting materials under vacuum conditions. It is mainly used for small batch production of plastic parts, such as parts required during the product development stage. Silicone mold casting has a wide range of applications, covering multiple industries such as automotive manufacturing, medical equipment, consumer products, etc.
So what kind of products are suitable for silicone molding? Gaofeng has been making prototypes for 18 years and has summarized the following points.
1.For small batches with low production volume, silicone mold can be used
Small batch demands include the following situations, such as newly developed products that need market promotion, samples for exhibitions, products with small market demand, trial production inspection samples, etc. It is recommended to use silicone mold processing and molding, because the use of steel mold injection molding for small quantities has a high cost risk and poor flexibility in improvement.
If the silicone molding process is used , on the one hand, the cost of this mold is low and it can meet most quality requirements. On the other hand, it is very flexible to improve and does not require too much time and cost to modify.
For example, for a product that you are promoting, if a customer likes your product but wants to add some of his elements, or has a better suggestion for a certain small part, we can immediately agree to the customer’s request and come back to revise the design drawings.
Another type is that most medical cosmetic equipment is conveniently made by prototype model processing factories, and most of the processing technology of prototype factories also uses duplicate molds. Because the market volume of medical equipment is not large, the equipment investment cost is high, and tens of thousands of units will not be invested at one time, but generally hundreds of sets.
2.Products with large volume and relatively complex structure can be made into duplicate molds
The cost of steel molds is too high. The mold fee for one part is millions, and if there are multiple parts, it will be tens of millions. This cost is not something that any product or company can afford, unless it is a national product or a government project where the cost can be ignored.
The cost of using silicone molds is much lower. If the silicone mold material is used to make larger products, some parts can use old materials (can be used after two processing), provided that the quality of the mold is not affected. Due to the large volume of the product, the processing product production and mold production cycles can overlap, so the overall cycle is not greatly affected, but the cost is controlled a lot for customers.
3.Small batch CNC machining of complex products
Many products in this situation are also made using duplicate molds, because there is no space for the cutting position in the machining process for many products, but the structural function must be achieved. If the product is disassembled into small parts, the strength of the product cannot be achieved, so it must be made using a duplicate mold.
For small products like mold re-processing, firstly, the strength can be achieved without disassembling parts, secondly, the precision can also achieve the structural coordination effect, thirdly, the labor cost is not very high, and fourthly, very complex products can be formed in one time.
