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View Full Version : Silicone vs Thermoplastic molding tooling cost comparison?



geneiusxie
10th January 2013, 08:23 AM
Hi guys,

I'm trying to mass produce a silicone phone case and I was wondering how much the molds would cost. According to various companies' online calculators, I'm getting quotes of around $10,000 for domestic companies on high quality molds, and as little as $1500 on "high quality" molds produced in China. But this is for thermoplastic injection molding. My friend told me that silicone injection molds would be much more expensive, but he didn't say by how much more or even give me any further explanation. I emailed some companies that specialize in silicone injection molding, but they haven't responded.

So how much would it cost (ballpark estimate) to make a mold for making a silicone iPhone case? Tolerances aren't that important, as long as they're within 0.5 mm or so, but flash should be kept to a mininum and have a good surface finish to convey the appearance of a high quality product. (I hear they can use liquid nitrogen to reduce flash on silicon molded products now.)

tfrounfe
10th January 2013, 03:21 PM
geneiusxie,

Interesting topic. I've got little experience in LSR, however, I do know that $10,000 IMO is cheap for even a thermoplastic tool, let alone a LSR tool. While there are a number of tool shops that are very good at typical thermoplastic tooling, most of these shops won't touch LSR tools because of the close tolerances needed. LSR will flash like crazy with typical venting depths of thermoplastics. Are you going to have a vendor do the molding for you? If so, they probably have a good source already for LSR tool vendors.

geneiusxie
11th January 2013, 04:30 AM
geneiusxie,

Interesting topic. I've got little experience in LSR, however, I do know that $10,000 IMO is cheap for even a thermoplastic tool, let alone a LSR tool. While there are a number of tool shops that are very good at typical thermoplastic tooling, most of these shops won't touch LSR tools because of the close tolerances needed. LSR will flash like crazy with typical venting depths of thermoplastics. Are you going to have a vendor do the molding for you? If so, they probably have a good source already for LSR tool vendors.

Hmm then how much do thermoplastic tools usually cost? This is for a relatively small production run, i.e., 1000 or more, so I think the molds might be cheaper because they don't need to be made of super-hard steel and stuff. And yes, I will have a company do everything from mold design to production of finished products for me. All I provide is the design and $ to make it happen.

Btw, these are the calculators I used to calculate the cost:

http://www.custompartnet.com/estimate/injection-molding-std/

This cheap Chinese source is much cheaper, but I'm not sure about their trustworthiness with them being overseas and all. But they claim good tolerances and long mold life, etc., so can't be that bad (unless they're lying.)
http://sourcing-cn.com/moldcalc_input.asp

Suhas
11th January 2013, 02:59 PM
Hi geneiusxie,

The best thing you can do is to actually go to a mold maker and/or molder and talk to them. Typically companies do not respond via email since they need a LOT of info from you before they can quote. Will your case need slides in the mold?, how many cavities, surface finish (SPI), material of the case, hot or cold runner, molding volume - how many a year?, etc, etc, etc. Here is what I suggest. - Take your laptop and go show the CAD model to a mold maker and ask him the cost of the mold. Once you get local pricing, you can compare off shore. Be careful with off shore since business is slow in China and they may give you a good deal but not a good mold.

Hope this helps.

Suhas

ExtenF Innovations
18th February 2017, 06:25 PM
Hi guys,

I'm trying to mass produce a silicone phone case and I was wondering how much the molds would cost. According to various companies' online calculators, I'm getting quotes of around $10,000 for domestic companies on high quality molds, and as little as $1500 on "high quality" molds produced in China. But this is for thermoplastic injection molding. My friend told me that silicone injection molds would be much more expensive, but he didn't say by how much more or even give me any further explanation. I emailed some companies that specialize in silicone injection molding, but they haven't responded.

So how much would it cost (ballpark estimate) to make a mold for making a silicone iPhone case? Tolerances aren't that important, as long as they're within 0.5 mm or so, but flash should be kept to a mininum and have a good surface finish to convey the appearance of a high quality product. (I hear they can use liquid nitrogen to reduce flash on silicon molded products now.)


I know this is an old post, but did you figure the cost differences out?

I'm currently having a Chinese manufacturer do this for me and the pricing is the opposite for me. We were going to originally make a silicone 4 cavity mold and realized that since the product is very stretchy, we need to use TPR instead with only 1 cavity due to the stickiness of the TPR.

This is what the pricing looks like for my product:

Silicone 4 cavity mold: $2,000.00 USD

TPR/TPE 1 cavity mold: $2,600.00 USD

TPR is much more labor intensive too since it sticks to the mold and is typically required to be manually pulled off the mold followed by spraying the mold.

The per/unit price for my product ended up being similar.

tbramel
20th February 2017, 12:59 AM
geneiusxie,

I live and work in China (8 years) and have good sources for LSR and thermoplastic injection tooling. Let me know if you would like contact information. I would also be able to over see the construction and sampling of the tools.