Custom Now Offers 3D Printing for Rapid Prototype Development
Elk Grove Village, IL - Custom Plastics, Inc. has recently acquired the ability to produce prototypes in-house using new additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, technology. The new technology, along with our full array of engineering software, will have a dramatic impact on customers bottom line while reducing the amount of time spend on the development phase of a project. Essentially, costly prototyping and tooling revisions will be a thing of the past for newly designed injection molded products.
By investing in the new 3D printing technology, Custom Plastics is now able to produce prototypes in-house within hours of receiving an approved drawing from a customer. The customer is then able to quickly examine the new part design for fit and function. Any changes that need to be made are communicated with Custom’s team of engineers and a second prototype is printed. This process is repeated until the customer is completely satisfied with the new part design. This process used to take weeks of continuous back-and-forth between Custom Plastics, the customer, and the prototype developer; now a design can go from a drawing to an approved prototype in a much shorter amount of time, saving customers valuable lead time.
Using the approved prototype model, the Custom Plastics engineering team is then able to use SolidWorks® MoldFlow analysis to optimize tooling design and gain extensive knowledge of how the chosen plastic resin will flow through the mold. Therefore, the engineers at Custom able to determine if the part will be molded properly, and if not, they can make adjustments before any tooling costs are incurred by the customer.
