With injection moulded parts, you need to pay for the set-up costs as well as the parts themselves. The moulds are expensive to make so initial costs are sky-high – but the unit cost of the part does get lower when you buy in higher quantities.
With 3D printing, on the other hand, you do not need moulds so the cost per part is stable. This is ideal for low to medium manufacturing – and with improvements in surface finishing, creating end-user parts is possible.
To make 1000 parts, you’d need an impression mould tool that can cost you between £3,000-20,000 – and take anything between 5-12 weeks to be made. With 3D printing, we can make this straight away without the initial set-up cost and within 4 days.
3D printing needs no tooling so it offers more creative freedom and a much faster turnaround.
