Plastic Gear Prototype 1
PLASTIC GEAR
PROTOTYPE
Accelerating prototype plastic gear
production with metal 3D printed
injection mold tooling
Introduction
The process of prototyping plastic gears has traditionally been an expensive and time-
consuming endeavor that inhibits the speed of product development and limits companies’
agility in meeting customer demands. A gear is typically designed and 3D printed in plastic to
assess its form and fit. However, the plastic prototype fails to deliver functional insights about
the gear. For a clear understanding of its functionality, it is crucial to produce a production
equivalent gear with the final material, surface finish, and mechanical properties. While
injection molding achieves this, it is prohibitively costly for low volume production and often
entails long lead times.
Challenges of prototype injection molding gears
FINE FEATURES: Gears comprise intricate features, especially in their teeth, that must be
precisely replicated in the mold. Producing a mold insert with these complex elements
necessitates using the sinker EDM process. Although effective in creating detailed features,
sinker EDM is one of the most costly and time-consuming steps in toolmaking. Every feature
requiring EDM requires electrodes to be designed, programmed (CAM) for machining,
machined (CNC), installed into the sinker EDM, programmed (CAM) for the EDM burn, and
finally, burning of the feature.
ENGINEERING RESINS: Many gears are created from engineered plastics that cannot be
molded using aluminum tools due to their high temperature, pressure, and abrasive properties.
Additionally, since many of these resins are filled, they cannot be machined, as the resulting
part would have different properties due to the fibers not flowing into their final orientation, as
would occur in molding. Thus, using engineering resin often necessitates that prototype gears
be created with steel tooling, which escalates the time and cost of tool production.
©MANTLE INC. 1950 Cesar Chavez St., San Francisco, CA 94124 www.mantle3D.com | [email protected]
Plastic Gear Prototype 2
Solution
Mantle’s metal 3D printing technology is designed specifically to print production-quality tool
steel injection mold inserts with the required precision and material properties within
prototyping timeframes, often in just days. This enables gear manufacturers to expedite the
prototyping stage of new gear product development, producing production equivalent gears in
a fraction of the usual time. Since the prototype tool is printed in H13 tool steel, it can also serve
as a bridge or be utilized in volume production following design approval. By using the end-use
tool material, H13, manufacturers can verify and mitigate production risks by validating the
mold functionality, molding process parameters, and molded part dimensional accuracy.
EXAMPLE
The core and cavity
were each 2 x 2 x .7”
and printed in H13
tool steel
A bevel gear’s core and cavity for prototype molding were created using Mantle’s metal 3D
printing technology in just 50 hours, with an additional 36 hours required for sintering. Post-
sintering, the inserts emerged as H13 tool steel with an HRC of 42, requiring minimal finishing
before being used to mold production equivalent bevel gears.
Print time: 51 hours (2 inserts)
Sinter time: 36 hours
Finish time: 10 hours (adding ejector pins and gating)
Total time: ≈4 days (both inserts)
COST: $920 (fully burdened cost for both inserts)
Contrastingly, a leading prototyping service provider quoted a 3-week lead time for the same
project, costing $6,000 for an aluminum tool predicted to withstand only 10,000 cycles.
Leveraging Mantle’s technology, tool steel inserts for prototyping, bridging, and production
molding can be produced in just days. This allows gear OEMs to significantly accelerate their
product development process.
©MANTLE INC. 1950 Cesar Chavez St., San Francisco, CA 94124 www.mantle3D.com | [email protected]
