At Midest, I discovered an excellent book about how to design parts for moulding. This yellow book is part of the well-known "Something for Dummies" series and has been published in collaboration between the publisher and proto labs, the worldwide specialist for on-line injection moulding and parts machining. Meeting with Bernard Faure, proto labs’ commercial director for France.
The concept of proto labs is to provide real parts within very short deadlines. By real parts we mean parts in the real material needed by the customer and not only "basic plastic" to see the shape. The concept is simple, you load the construction files online, feed some fields and that’s it, proto labs create the part within 24/48 or at worst 72 hours. From 2012 an express service guarantees production within 24 hours, no matter the load of proto labs’ machines pool.
Many people are entering into injection In 2012 about 6500 customers ordered parts to proto labs and sometimes, the production flow is slowed because the design may not always be taking the right things into account. Mr. Faure says: "More and more people are entering this field and some of the engineers come from the mechanical field and not from injection". He adds: "Even if they are professional, sometimes we need to help them design more accurately regarding injection constraints"... hence the idea to publish this book.
Available everywhere The new "Injection moulding part design for dummies" is available at protolabs’ in English, French, German and Italian. You can order it (free of charge) at the addresses below. Questionned about the competition and these good pieces of advices protolabs is giving, Mr. Faure concludes: "The aim is to help our customers being more efficient and if we help other people also, it’s good for the whole injection moulding industry".
Proto labs Bernard Faure Savoie-Technolac 18 Allée du Lac St. André 73382 Le Bourget du Lac Cédex France Phone +33 (0) 479 65 46 50 Fax +33 (0) 479 65 46 51 [email protected]
In the UK: [email protected] First cut – CNC machining: www.firstcut.eu Protomold – Injection: www.protomold.fr
