I have a physical product with a finished design that I'd like to sell. Making the circuit is easy enough, but the way I made the plastic isn't scalable. I'd like to make 10-20 copies of my product. Ideally, there's some kind of cheap moldable plastic, anybody out there have any idea what I should use?
Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
1–10 of 13 posts
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#2Maybe one of those online fabrication sites (don't know of any off the top of my head, but you could find some on fabbaloo.com)? Or are they still too expensive?
Too bad you don't need more than 10-20, then you could probably use a factory in China.
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#3For that size order, something like emachineshop.com might be the ticket.
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#4Look up "tool and die" in the yellow pages.
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#5Protomold.com is your best bet, ultimately you can make a larger run off the molds where as milling won't tell you anything about the viability of it as an injection molded product. Also injection molding is a bit more complicated than just drawing up a shape so you might need some expertise if you are going down that road.
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#6stereolithography
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#7stereolithography
Stereolithography is usually fine for evaluating product form, but the cured polymers aren't (usually) functional. Fused deposition systems (from Stratasys) produce functional parts from ABS, similar in strength and workability (for drilling/tapping holes, finishing surfaces, etc.) to injection molded parts.
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#8Depends on the surface finish you want, amount of post-fabrication hand work you want to do, price, strength, size...
You could look at www.shapeways.com
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#9I always try and find a way to make it out of metal in smaller quantities (and larger for that matter).
Re: Ask HN: mass-manufacture plastic
#10I've been doing some home molding with High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) and with clear PETG. The polystyrene is opaque, white, strong, and particularly easy to work with. It's also cheap (about $50 for a 1/8" 4'x8' sheet).
Vacuum molding at home with an oven and a vacuum cleaner can produce surprisingly good results. Searching the web for "vacuum molding" or "vacuum forming" should turn up some decent tutorials.
TAPPlastics.com is pretty good for small quantities (especially if you are near one of their stores), but others (like Interstate Plastics) have better prices on full sheets. TAP has HIPS at their store near me, although I don't see it listed on their web site.