How to Create the Perfect Plastic Prototype?

Before taking your product into the market, you’ll have to consider a lot of things. For instance, the product looks cool aesthetics-wise, has achieved full functionality, and is perfectly designed. Therefore, creating a plastic prototype is important to avoid failures in any of these areas.

Here’s our plastic injection molding expert outlining how to do it!

The first thing you’ll need to create a perfect plastic prototype is a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) model. This is your product’s digital mock-up, which will help you and your molder understand how the product will function, how the parts will fit together, and what the product should look like.

When you’re done developing a CAD model, create a physical prototype model. Normally, plastic prototypes are broken down into two main categories: functional and visual.

Functional: This prototype can allow you to test your product design in advance – before you proceed to the production phase.

Visual: This prototype is designed to get a gist of what the final product will look like. Since a visual prototype doesn’t need to function as the end product, 3D printing is the cheapest and quickest way to develop one. 3D printing is also known as additive manufacturing or rapid prototyping.

There’s no better way of getting a visual prototype than 3D printing. While an inexpensive way of creating plastic parts, 3D printing isn’t a replacement for injection molding. Remember, the only way of manufacturing a working, functional plastic prototype is through injection molding.

If you successfully develop a functional plastic prototype, you can explore and test various types of plastic so you can choose one with the cost, color, durability, and strength that’ll be best for your product. It’ll also enable you to test your product before you invest money in tooling.

Injection-molded prototypes do two things: one; they ensure the injection mold design itself is adjusted for production at a bigger scale; two, they show you want your product or part will look like. Note that the quality of your plastic parts is heavily dependent on the mold they’re made in. So, choose an injection molding company carefully.

Get help from PTMS – one of the leading injection molding companies in China!

At PTMS, we understand that the prototyping stage can confuse many people, especially those who are developing a plastic part for the first time. This is where we come in.

Contact us now for more information on our injection molding services!