Calculating The True Per Part Cost For Injection Molding Vs 3D Printing

At what point does it make sense to 3D print a part compared to opting for injection molding? The short answer is “it depends.” The medium-sized answer is, “it depends on some bac…

Multi-Material Printing Enables Low Cost Silicone Prototypes

While it’s the ideal choice for mass production, injection molding is simply no good for prototyping. The molds are expensive and time-consuming make, so unless you’ve got the funding t…

Injection Molding Using A 3D Printer

Recently [Stefan] of CNC Kitchen took a gander at using his gaggle of 3D printers to try injection molding (IM). Although the IM process generally requires metal molds and specialized machinery, 3D…

These Keycaps Are 100% Recycled Plastic

Artisan keycaps are generally meant to replace your Escape key, though they can be used anywhere you like (as long as they fit, of course). Keycap maker [tellybelly] of jankycaps has been experimen…

Recreating The Pop Ball

Those who were kids in the 80s may remember a sweet little toy called the Pop Ball. A simple rubber hemisphere, this rubber cup could be turned inside out and thrown on the ground, where it would h…

Lessons Learned: Plastic Injection Molding For Products

Injection molding is one of the technologies that makes the world go round. But what does it actually look like to go through the whole process to get a part made? [Achim Haug] wrote up a blog post…

Making An Injection Mold For Yourself

Injection molding is the obvious onward step from 3D printing when the making of a few plastic parts becomes their series manufacture. The problem with injection molding is though, that making a mo…

Enhance Your Enclosures With A Shadow Line

Some design techniques and concepts from the injection molding world apply very nicely to 3D printing, despite them being fundamentally different processes. [Teaching Tech] demonstrates designing s…

Repairing A Home Injection Molding Machine

When [Michael] over at the Teaching Tech YouTube channel bought a hobby injection molding machine a long time ago, one of the plans he had with it was to use it for grinding up waste bits of PLA fi…

Hackaday Prize 2022: Recycled Plastic Skateboard Decks Demonstrate Small-Scale Injection Molding

Injection molding is usually focused on high-volume production, but that doesn’t always need to be the case. The Recycled Plastic Skateboard Deck project centers on the use of injection moldi…

Injection Molds: Aluminum Or Resin?

[JohnSL] and his friend both have injection molding machines. They decided to compare the aluminum molds they usually use with some 3D printed molds created with a resin printer. They used two diff…

Injekto Injection Machine Reaches 2.0

Last time we looked in on Injekto — a homemade plastic injection machine — it was at version 1.0. A recent video from the team that you can see below shows version 2 which is much impro…

Used Facemasks Turned Into Rapid Antigen Tests With Injection Molding

Here’s a little eye-opener for you: next time you’re taking a walk, cast your eyes to the ground for a bit and see how far you can go without spotting a carelessly discarded face mask. …

DIY Injection Molder Built From A Cheap Pneumatic Press

[Kurt Schaefer] was watching YouTube videos of people making molds for injection molding purposes using what he considered to be the toy 3018 CNC machines, and looking at the results, decided he ne…

Tiny Homemade Injection Molder

With 3d printing continually gaining ground, some hackers might not see the need for traditional injection molding. After all, you can tweak the code or the model and print dozens of different iter…

THICC GBA SP Mod Gets Easy Install Ahead Of Release

Back in August we covered a unique modification for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP which replaced the handheld’s rear panel with an expanded version that had enough internal volume for an u…

Injection Molding Silicone Parts For Under $50

You’ve likely seen many tutorials on making silicone parts using 3D printed molds online. The vast majority of these methods use a simple pour method to fill the mold. This relies on careful …

Injection Molds From Your 3D Printer

Last time we checked in with [CrafsMan] he had bought a benchtop injection molding machine. This time, he shows off how to 3D print molds. If you have ever had to spend to make tooling for injectio…

A Plastic Injection Machine You Can Use At Home

3D printing is all well and good if you want one of something, but if you want lots of plastic parts that are all largely identical, you should consider injection molding. You can pay someone to do…

Injection-Molded Glass Breakthrough Shatters Ceiling Of Work Methods

Glass is one of humanity’s oldest materials, and it is still used widely for everything from drinking vessels and packaging to optics and communications. Unfortunately, the methods for workin…