Plastic Molded Concepts: The Good & Bad of Injection Molding

Plastic Molded Concepts is a top plastic injection molding company. Here, you’ll learn the benefits and downsides of injection molding.

Injection molding is simply a manufacturing process that involves injecting material into a mold.

Here’s how it works: material like plastics is melted and then injected into a mold, allowed to cool and harden, and then removed as a finished part.

This process is highly efficient for making the same parts in large quantities, particularly with polymers.

Aside from injection molding, there are other options that you can explore, like CNC machining or 3D printing.

They can help bring success to your project.

One top plastic injection molding company you can find around for your project is Plastic Model Concepts.

At Plastic Molded Concepts (PMC), we are among the few plastic injection molding companies that specialize in molding advanced engineered resins.

You can count on our 50 years of experience, combined with our Master Molders and state-of-the-art technologies, in developing numerous new products across various industries.

Well, in this post, our focus is to show you the good and bad sides of injection molding, so you can know when it’s best to go for another production method.

The Benefits Of Injection Molding

Among the several benefits of Injection molding is a reduction in molding costs.

Also, it’s a highly repeatable method for producing plastic or elastomeric parts with high precision.

Once the injector is set up, you can use various plastics and other materials, such as liquid silicone rubber, to produce a high volume of parts per hour.

However, like every other manufacturing process, it has some disadvantages.

We’re going to talk about the benefits now, and in the next section, we’ll show you the disadvantages.

1. Efficient high production

Once you have built the molds, the process is swift with cycle times as short as 10 seconds.

It’s ideal for medium- to high-volume production runs. Depending on the type of molds used, you can produce quantities ranging from 10,000 parts to over 100,000.

Sometimes, you can also use multi-cavity or family molds to increase production. This kind of mold can produce several parts with a single press.

2. Low cost per part

For high-output production runs, the cost per part is very low.

Even for medium volumes, you can use aluminum molds instead of steel to reduce costs.

3. Repeatability

You can manufacture identical products repeatedly. This is perfect when you need to have parts with high tolerances and reliability across high volumes.

4. Large material choice

You can get the specific properties you need for your final part from the countless plastic materials that are available to choose from.

And you are not limited to plastic, Plastic Molded Concepts also offers liquid silicone rubber molding.

If you want to make the completed part even stronger, you can use fillers in the molding material.

There are also various colors to choose from.

5. Low waste

The injection molding process doesn’t come with much waste compared to many other manufacturing processes.

Even if there is any unused or waste plastic, you can recycle it for future use.

6. High detail

Injection molding involves injecting molten plastic into the mold under very high pressure.

This presses the plastic against the molds, allowing for compound and intricate shapes, as well as a high level of detail.

7. Little or no post-processing

Generally, you will need very little post-production, as the parts usually have a pleasing appearance after they are produced.

We can produce the tooling with an exceptional finish that will be immediately visible on the injection-molded part.

You can even have your logo or text engraved on it.

The Disadvantages Of Injection Molding

This is the point at which you should start considering alternative manufacturing methods to injection molding.

1. Initial cost

If you prefer to use steel mold tools for high production volumes of approximately 100,000 or more, it’ll take a lot of time and machining to produce.

As you are aware, this can lead to significant capital costs.

This will affect your cost per part price if you need lower volumes of parts.

So, it’s worth exploring other options, like using aluminum molds instead.

2. Initial lead times

It can take up to 12 weeks to produce steel tooling. If you need to get production running before this, consider our on-demand production option.

For very low production runs, alternative technologies, such as CNC machining, may offer a more cost-effective solution in a shorter timeframe.

3. Design limitations

You will need to consider certain design elements, such as:

Using draft and radii to help the ejection of the parts
Avoiding undercuts and sharp edges
Controlling wall thicknesses

You also need to consider where to place your gates, ejectors, and cooling lines if a good appearance is important.

You should know that it’s not easy to change the design of a mold. You can either remove part of the mold or add plastic to your final part.

But you can’t do it the other way around.

If you want a smaller production, you can use 3D printing to design almost any shape or geometry that you need.

With 50 years of experience, combined with our Master Molders and state-of-the-art technologies, we can produce an increasing number of plastics and other materials, including metal.