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What is the Difference Between Injection Molding vs 3D printing?

Table of Contents

3D printing is mainly applied to product development, such as product appearance verification, structure verification, and sales research.

Injection molding is the mass produce objects through injection molds and injection molding machines. Injection molding makes manufacturing processes quite easy to create plastic parts with enhanced strength.

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Injection-molded products are production methods that utilize the characteristics of hot-melting and cold-setting of plastic materials by injecting molten plastic materials into the mold under pressure and removing them from the mold after cooling and shaping; they have the characteristics of high yield and large batch production manufacture objects.

3D printing is a method of printing out three-dimensional models by stacking layer by layer using computer technology, which has the characteristics of producing various product models without molds.

However, because there is no pressure in the printing process, the strength of the product is not as strong as that of custom injection molding products, and it is highly efficient when used for a small number of, single-piece products and models.

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The development history of the two processes

The concept of 3D printing technology was introduced and recognized by foreign scientists as early as the 1980s, and officially entered people’s lives in the mid-1990s.

3D printing is a rapid prototyping technology, which is a digital model file-based technology that uses powdered metal/plastic and other bondable materials to construct objects by printing layer by layer and it’s an additive manufacturing process.

Plastic injection molding manufacturing is a method in which a completely molten build material is stirred by a screw at a certain temperature, injected into a injection molding tooling cavity with high pressure, and cooled and cured to obtain a molded product.

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The process began in the 1920s and has been developed for nearly 100 years, and is a very widely used and mature industrial manufacturing methods technology.

This article will explain the difference between 3D printing and custom plastic injection moulding from five aspects: principle, production mode, cost, processing quality, and application areas.

3D printing technology compared with the principles of injection molding

3D printing technology is the technology of the last century, the market of this century.

3D printing technology is a technology based on rapid prototyping technology, based on digital model files, using powdered metal, plastic using powdered metal/plastic, and other bondable materials, by printing layer by layer to construct other objects.

Injection molding technology is based on the method of mixing completely molten plastic material by a screw at a certain temperature, injecting it into the mold cavity with high pressure, and curing it by cooling to obtain molded products.

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3D printing technology vs. injection molding production models

The plastic injection molding manufacturing process can produce standardized products at a low cost and on a large scale as long as an injection mold is available, so for traditional high-volume, large-scale manufacturing, the injection molding manufacturing process is still the best choice at this time.

3D printers do not need traditional tools, fixtures, machine tools, or any molds, they can directly take any shape of the computer automatically, quickly, directly, and relatively accurately transform the 3D design in the computer into a physical model.

Thanks to the characteristics of 3D printers greatly different from the traditional injection molding process, the more complex non-solid objects, the faster the processing speed, the more savings in raw material costs. Therefore better at the manufacture of personalized and diverse products.

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3D printing technology vs. injection molding technology production costs

Due to the wide availability of raw materials for injection molding and its characteristics of mass and rapid standardized production method, which also helps to reduce the cost of individual products.

The cost of injection molding is much lower than 3D printing technology in terms of manufacturing costs.

However, for industrial mass manufacturing, the real cost-saving aspect of 3D printing is the modification of the prototype, which only requires modification of the CAD model and does not incur any manufacturing cost.

In injection molding, if the prototype is a steel mold, the cost of modification will be relatively low, but if the use of aluminum alloy mold-making tools, the cost will be much higher.

This is also the reason why many companies or individuals currently engaged in mold design, will choose the 3D printer for mold design printing in Creative 3D.

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3D printing technology vs. injection molding production quality

Using high 3D printers will know that the printed parts do not have the same physical properties, while injection molding machine technology, mass manufacturing out parts on, not only have more physical properties than 3D printing technology.

And production parts have more surface finish, the product is more resistant, which is not available in 3D printing technology.

3D printing technology vs. injection molding application areas

At present, the market, the injection molding process can realize the mass production of manufacturing items, more suitable for batch processing of a certain part, standardized production, such as the production of toys, aviation, aerospace, electronics, machinery, and other fields.

3D printing is the emergence of new technologies, through digital computer technology, made of models, you can 3D printing materials, made of the need for models.

It can effectively shorten the processing time, widely used in children’s education creators, architectural design, and even the medical industry.

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Summary

Through this article, you should have a general understanding of the difference between injection molding and 3D printing.

3D Printing is Best-Suited For: Quick turnaround times (1-2 weeks) and small batch DIY Plastic production runs (100 parts or fewer) Designs with frequent changes Relatively small plastic parts or components

Injection Molding is Best-Suited For: Longer turnaround times (5-7 weeks for simple parts) High volume production runs (1,000+ parts per run) Final part design (no more prototyping) Parts of any size or complexity.

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If you plan to do a plastic product project, first determine how many products there are, you can use 3D printing to make a hand board to verify the function and assembly in the early stage.

After the verification is completed, you can use the injection molding process to achieve mass production by making plastic injection mold.

3D printing can print raw materials into physical models or even directly manufacture parts or molds by simply inputting 3D images through the control terminal, thus effectively shortening the product development cycle.

The injection molding process enables batch manufacturing of uniformly shaped items, making it ideal for high-volume manufacturing of standardized products.

ZetarMold can combine injection molding manufacturing method and 3D Printing Prototype method well, converting your ideas into reality !

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Send drawings and detailed requirements via 

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