Rapid Tooling: Its Processes, Advantages, and Applications

If you want to market your product faster, you will need rapid prototyping to make the parts readily available for testing. There are numerous innovations happening in the manufacturing sector recently. Among these developments are various rapid prototyping technologies that significantly assist design teams during the product development phase. This is referred to as rapid prototyping.

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Thanks to rapid tooling, components are produced swiftly to test and validate them before transitioning to production tooling. Rapid tooling goes by several names, including prototypes tooling, soft tooling, or prototype mold. For the moment, let's focus on rapid tooling.

This article will delve deeper into this popular term and examine its benefits and applications. Before we explore those, let's first clarify what rapid tooling is.

The Beginning of Rapid Tooling

In essence, rapid tooling refers to a process of quickly creating prototypes. This practice originated in the 1980s, when engineers utilizing plastic injection molding sought methods to produce molds within days or even hours, as opposed to the several months it previously took to create a machine mold.

Products crafted via rapid tooling serve as an excellent solution for testing and assessing prototypes, enabling the production of hundreds of parts before fully committing to the production process. Techniques associated with rapid tooling can build inserts like cores, side actions, and cavities of the components. Depending on the method employed, these techniques can yield parts through multiple cycles out of the same mold.

With a variety of rapid tooling techniques available, each can offer distinct advantages. However, certain factors must be considered to maximize these benefits since they fluctuate based on the dimensions, consistency, technology, accuracy, and materials chosen.

Moreover, it is crucial to consider the limitations related to rapid tooling when creating your prototype.

#1 The mold should be strong

The mold must possess durability to withstand the injection molding process. Molding machines apply intense pressure of heated materials into the mold, necessitating that the molds endure these injections.

#2 The mold should be smooth

In addition to strength, the mold's surface must remain smooth to facilitate the clean injection of plastic. This characteristic is vital for every ejection. In rapid tooling, certain processes add materials layer by layer, potentially leading to a rough surface. In such cases, additional finishing might be required to ensure viability for prototyping.

One notable aspect of rapid tooling is that it utilizes the same materials as the final product. This advantage allows for a more accurate evaluation of how the components will perform in real-world usage, giving designers the opportunity to assess whether they have selected the appropriate materials.

Benefits of Rapid Tooling

Here are additional benefits associated with rapid tooling:

It provides an opportunity for innovation

Since rapid tooling eliminates the need for traditional tooling, it opens up numerous avenues for enhancements. Conventional prototyping can be a lengthy process as creating prototype tooling and its components involves precise tolerances. Rapid prototyping allows designers to conceive intricate geometries that would be unfeasible with traditional methods.

Time-saving

The time-saving advantage of rapid tooling lies in its ability to bypass the production of molds, patterns, and specific tools used in traditional processes. This efficiency significantly decreases the time frame between conceptualization and evaluation.

The resulting prototypes are accurate and readily available for evaluating forms, features, usability, and performance. Additionally, designers can adjust the product based on feedback received. A rapid turnaround provides companies a competitive edge in introducing new products to the market.

Cost Savings

Another key benefit of rapid tooling is the potential for cost savings. Parts produced through rapid tooling are akin to those created through full-scale production, making them suitable for impact and stress testing. The results derived from testing allow for necessary modifications before engaging in an expensive tooling process.

Applications of Rapid Tooling

The applications of rapid tooling are diverse, and these applications are expected to grow with the advancement of new methodologies. Some notable examples include:

The creation of both metallic and non-metallic molds can be accomplished through rapid tooling.

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The design of casting shapes and cores—SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) processes represent the latest technology for crafting sand casting shapes and cores.

Applications extend to EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) electrodes, the creation of marking stamps, the production of hybrid patterns for casting, and the development of splintering tools.

Considering the potential of rapid tooling is beneficial, as it is a cost-effective, quick, and efficient method that facilitates faster market entry for parts. The financial advantage stands out considerably as it enables market testing, particularly useful for low-volume production.

Advantages of Rapid Tooling and Low-Volume Molding

What is on-demand rapid tooling and low-volume molding?

From your car's dashboard to the lid on your coffee cup, countless everyday objects are produced through molding—a process through which a hollow container is filled with molten material to yield numerous identical products.

Although molding typically relates to mass production, emerging digital manufacturing methods, such as additive manufacturing (3D printing) and CNC machining, now allow for the rapid creation of prototype molds in minimal time. This technique is termed rapid tooling.

While molds generated through rapid tooling are generally not suitable for mass production, they can still be used to manufacture many copies of a particular item. Consequently, low-volume molding—the process of producing small quantities of molded products—is frequently associated with rapid tooling, providing customers with a batch of prototype products instead of just a single copy.

The advantages associated with rapid prototyping and low-volume molding are extensive. Below is an overview of the significant benefits offered by these two interrelated processes.

Advantages of rapid tooling and low-volume molding

The primary advantage of rapid tooling is embedded in its name: speed. Digital manufacturing technologies such as additive manufacturing and CNC machining enable exceptionally quick mold creation, allowing rapid tooling service providers to deliver fast product turnovers. This means businesses can acquire their products swiftly, leading to earlier market entry.

Cost advantages are also substantial with rapid tooling. The bulk of the process predominantly relies on a computer and automated machines like 3D printers, making rapid tooling significantly more economical than traditional toolmaking, with these savings being reflected in the customer pricing. This results in affordable molded products even in low quantities.

Beyond time and cost benefits, there are further specific gains related to rapid tooling and low-volume molding, many of which are tied to the digital methods utilized for mold creation. Since CAD (Computer-Aided Design) is employed to produce the mold, manufacturers can maintain consistency across various molds simply by reusing the same digital file. The digital nature of creating these tools allows for the optimization of cooling channels and other features, and facilitates quick changes for future molds.

On-demand rapid tooling and low-volume molding also serve as effective precursors to mass production.

One advantage is that rapid tooling can accommodate a variety of materials, allowing manufacturers to create small quantities of a product in multiple materials and finishes, assisting customers in determining the best configuration for their product.

Furthermore, prototype molds are valuable for bridge production, particularly when customers need to launch the first batch of products prior to final tooling completion. Low-volume molding can also help identify previously unnoticed product flaws before advancing to mass production.

On-demand rapid tooling and low-volume molding with 3ERP

With extensive experience in the rapid prototyping sector, 3ERP in China is a specialist in rapid tooling and low-volume molding, equipped with both the skills and technology to harness the advantages of these processes effectively.

In terms of rapid tooling capabilities, 3ERP offers two metal options: aluminum mold tooling, a cost-effective choice suitable for prototypes, and steel mold tooling, which can be used with abrasive, corrosive, and engineering-grade plastics, capable of producing millions of molded parts—ideal for bridge production. Molds can be manufactured following DME, HASCO, and LKM standards.

However, those metal mold choices represent just the beginning of the material options available through 3ERP. Once the molds are prepared for use, customers benefit from considerable flexibility in the following low-volume molding phase.

Molded products can be produced from a vast array of plastics, including nylons, polycarbonates, and thermoplastic elastomers, and come in various colors and finishes, such as laser finishing and heat staking.