A good mold quote is much like many other facets of life. The quality of result is proportional to the amount of effort you put into them.
The whole purpose of the mold, is to make the plastic part. So the more the mold designer knows about the part design, the more accurate the resulting mold quotation will satisfy the request.
If the part information is in the form of a sketch with no selected resin or composite identified for manufacturing it, you will get a VERY ballpark mold and component quotation.
A drawing will get you a slightly better result.
A CAD file and the desired resin or composite, you receive a more accurate quotation.
A CAD file with a part optimized for molding with wall draft, identified radii or sharp edges, required surface finishes identified and wall thicknesses optimized, keep out cosmetic areas and acceptable locations for ejection pin marks or knit lines, an absence of or identified undercuts with an understanding that they will add features to the mold design and cost. A very accurate quotation.
All the previous AND an understanding of the component’s use environment, i.e. a Physical Design Requirements Specification for the lack of a better name will result in as accurate a quote you can get without having designed the part with us participating in your work.
As stated earlier, the more the mold designer knows, the better the resulting deliverables will be.
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?