While injection molding is traditionally considered a manufacturing process only for mass production due to its high tooling costs, leveraging 3D printing to fabricate injection molds can empower you to use this process to produce high-quality and repeatable parts for prototyping and low-volume production.

In this comprehensive guide, learn how you can use 3D printed injection molds with both benchtop and industrial machines to efficiently and affordably produce hundreds of functional prototypes and parts that accelerate product development, reduce costs and lead times, and bring better products to market.

Low-Volume Injection Molding vs. Traditional Injection Molding

Injection molding is one of the leading processes for manufacturing plastics. It is a cost-effective and extremely repeatable technology that yields high-quality parts for large series production. As a result, it is widely used for mass-producing identical parts with tight tolerances.

Injection molding is a fast, intensive process where high heat and pressure are involved to inject molten material inside a mold. The molten material depends on the scope of the manufacturing project. The most popular materials are various thermoplastics, such as ABS, PS, PE, PC, PP, or TPU, but metals and ceramics can be injection molded as well. The mold consists of a cavity that accommodates the injected molten material and is designed to closely mirror the final features of a part.

The molds are traditionally made out of metal by CNC machining or electric discharge machining (EDM). These are expensive industrial methods that require specialized equipment, high-end software, and skilled labor. As a result, the production of a metal mold typically takes four to eight weeks and costs anywhere from $2,000 to $100,000+ depending on the shape and the complexity of the part. For smaller part quantities, the cost, time, specialized equipment, and skilled labor required to fabricate the mold out of common tooling metals and manufacturing methods often makes injection molding at this scale unobtainable. However, there are alternatives to machining molds out of metal. Leveraging in-house 3D printing to fabricate injection molds for prototyping and low-volume production significantly reduces cost and time compared to metal molds, while still producing high-quality and repeatable parts.