What is vacuum casting/injection?

There are many production methods for plastic products, and vacuum injection molding is one of them. Today, I will introduce its characteristics.

Vacuum injection molding is a technology for making copy duplicate, also known as vacuum molding. Generally, a prototype is made by 3D printing, CNC processing, etc., and then a silicone mold or rubber mold is made from the prototype (currently mainly silicone ), and then in a vacuum state, the liquid resin is injected into the mold and hardened.

What type of product is suitable for vacuum injection?

Vacuum casting prototypes

It is widely used in medical

robotics

auto parts

digital home appliances

such as medical device casings

electronic product enclosure and accessories

Process of vacuum injection molding

1. 3D printing or CNC machining to make a prototype;

2. Fix the prototype on the wooden board, and then use other wooden boards to make a 5-sided sealed wooden box mold;

3. Prepare the silicone and pour it into the wooden box mold;

4. The wooden box mold is placed in an oven after standing in a vacuum state for a period of time to accelerate curing;

5. After curing, make an incision on the silicone mold and take out the prototype;

6. Seal the silicone mold and put it into the vacuum injection molding machine;

7. Prepare the resin material and put it into the vacuum injection molding machine;

8. Stir the resin material under vacuum and inject it into the silicone mold;

9. Take out the silicone mold and put it into the oven to accelerate curing;

10. After curing, open the mold and take out the product;

Advantages of vacuum injection molding

1. The production cycle of silicone molds is much shorter than that of metal molds (used for injection molding).

2. The production cost of silicone molds is also much cheaper than metal molds.

3. It is very suitable for small batch production of 1-20 pieces of products.

Disadvantages of vacuum injection molding

1. Silicone molds can generally only be used about 20 times.

2. The precision is slightly lower than CNC machining and injection molding.

The materials that can be used in vacuum casting

vacuum casting ABS prototypes

ABS PC Aluminum+tpu PMMA Nylon

Production cycle and precision

Production cycle 3-7 days fast delivery, precision up to ±0.1mm, suitable for small batch customization within 1000.

Surface treatment technology for custom plastic prototypes
Polishing, painting, polishing, screen printing, electroplating, etc., the effect can be completely comparable to the products produced by the injection mold; No matter appearance, assembly, functional verification, can achieve the customer’s final design intention.