Advantages of vacuum casting in the medical industry

New product development in the medical industry is inseparable from prototypes. Prototypes are the first step to verify the feasibility of products. Prototypes allow product designers to perfect the design before using injection molds.Vacuum casting is a common rapid prototyping process, and is ideal for high quality prototypes, function testing, and proof of concept.

This article briefly introduces you the advantages of choosing Silicone vacuum casting in the development of medical application products.
 

1.Speed

It takes a day or two to make the silicone molds before to make resin cast prototypes,and it takes up to a week or less from the prototypes of the master pattern to the finished products, depending on the specifications and quantity of parts. In addition, the silicone mold can be used about 20 times before it needs to be replaced, which means that the mold can be reused to cast more parts, which can save much time.
 

2.Superior surface finish

The appearance and performance of resin cast prototypes are almost the same as those of injection molded parts, including size, tolerances, fine surface textures, etc. Moreover, the vasuum casting copy of the main pattern shows excellent fidelity for the original pattern, which makes it easy for the prototype to be coated with paint without other polishing, polishing.

3.Multiple Materials and Overmolding

With the development of medical devices, medical products today usually use the form of a shell formed by panels, screens, keyboards and other interactive elements. These control surfaces and keyboards usually use soft elastomers or other rubber-like materials as coating materials. The molding of two or more different materials into a single finished product can be molded by vacuum casting or injection molding, but the latter is more expensive and time-consuming.

4.Choice

Products used in health-care environment need to be strong, heat-resistant, chemical-resistant, transparent, easy to clean and many other different chemical and mechanical properties. There are many options for castable resins that meet these characteristics, such as PMMA, PA, ABS, PC,etc.

5.Affordability

It is small investment to make vacuum casting master molds and resin copies. In most cases, compared with other alternatives, such as CNC machining, 3D printing, etc., customers will choose vacuum casting service to save more costs.

Youde has years of experience in the vacuum casting. Learn more about our vacuum casting service and contact us for a free quote on your next low volume manufacturing project.