Overview

This is a fantastic example of where 3D printing can be used as an alternative to injection moulding. It’s a simple guide to separate two wires that ran over the top of a printed circuit board that was unavailable as an off the shelf item. Only 1,000 of these were required for the project, meaning that the £1,000 outlay required for tooling up an injection moulding machine was not economically viable for that quantity, let alone the individual part cost for a run that small.

We are able to print these as a production run for just 40p per part, bringing the total cost for manufacturing 1,000 of them to £400 – less than half the price of just the tooling for injection mould. Combining this with our free polishing service gave the part the look and feel of mass production but at a fraction of the cost.

It was stated that it would have been viable to print over 10,000 of these before traditional methods of manufacture became more cost effective.

Project Details