Prototype Vacuum Forming
To create the pattern for the part, Urethane tooling or Wrenwood is cut into the specific size and shape by a CNC machine. Alternatively, we can 3D print FDM vac forming tool with hear resistant filament, further reducing time and cost to complete.
With the pattern in place, plastic material is heated until it becomes soft and cloth-like. The heated plastic is stretched over the pattern and a vacuum is used to pull the plastic tightly to the pattern. A variety of thermoplastics can be used to create the prototype part, such as ABS, styrene or PETG. The thickness of the material is dependent on the geometry of the pattern. After the plastic part cools, it is removed from the pattern and finished. Parts can be finished by hand or trimmed by a 3 or 5-axis CNC machine for precise or complicated trim edges.
Prototype Injection Molds
A prototyping injection mold allows you to manufacture your product in order to refine your manufacturing process. Early prototypes can also speed innovation and help to engineer solutions within the manufacturing process and product line in the future.
MPTI will complete all operations for the creation of your prototype and production molds ensuring that every mold conforms to your exact specifications with the proper texture and tolerances.
Production Tooling
In our experience, when you need production ready injection molds for a project, you could be waiting several weeks and must deal with multiple suppliers in order to source materials, various outside operations, as well as the final trials the production run molds.
Utilizing MPTI’s in-house tool-shop, resources and manufacturing technologies, MPTI can produce production injection molds with superior materials, industry leading quality and 100% on-time delivery.
We create production ready injection molds that will help get your production line up and running quickly. Additionally, MPTI can assist you with full injection molding capabilities in our multiple Engel molding machines (ranging from 100-2500T).
3D (FDM) Printing
3D printing, also referred to as additive manufacturing or rapid prototyping, is a process in which a three-dimensional polymer object is created in layers with data from a CAD file.
3D printing in house reduces the standard lead time of 3-5 days to roughly 24 hours. Some parts can be printed as quickly as just a few hours. MPTI uses fused deposition modeling (FDM) Stratasys Fortus 450mc rapid prototyping machines.
This allows us to print a wide range parts that can be used for printing master parts for silicone molds, proof-of-concept parts and expedite the development process to more durable parts to test mechanism function.
The 3D printing machine reads a CAD file and translates the data into digital slices. Each machine then builds the part on the build trays in those slices. The FDM machines lay down each slice in layers of heated filament. After printing is complete any support material can be removed, and the parts are ready to be used.
MPTI takes care in printing each part assuring our customers meet their desired end goal.
Larger parts can be created by gluing multiple pieces together.