At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the length of time it takes to make an injection mold all depends on the component design. The more features on the component requiring the mold to deviate from a straight pull design, the longer its design, fabrication, and build will take.
Every mold starts from the concept, can the part can be formed simply by pulling the two halves of the mold apart? That is know as a “straight pull” mold. Then you start adding in component features like undercuts and threads, which add features to the mold like hydraulics and slides making the mold more complex and adding to its development time.
Part geometry that make the part more difficult to separate from the two halves and added ejection components to get the part out of the mold also add to the mold’s complexity, cost and timeline.
Suffice it to say, a mold build of varying complexity can take as little as two weeks to as many as 12 weeks.
Do you want to cut down the time it takes for mold completion? Sit down with your mold designer and molder EARLY and often. Let them help you to accomplish the design requirements you have but make the part easier to accommodate a mold and easier to injection mold. Do that and you can win the trifecta in time to market, development cost AND production standard cost.
More FAQ’s answered in the articles below:
Does PlastiCert perform more than mold design and molding work?
What types of molding do we perform at PlastiCert?
Do we only run molds made at PlastiCert?
Prototype tool work at PlastiCert
New molds at PlastiCert, where do they come from?
How does a typical project get started?